Yes. What you describe is, roughly, 4e's default set-up. (It treats Devils as gods rather than equating them with Demons as "fiends".)
As far as Erythnul is concerned, I think he works best as an Exarch of Gruumsh.
D&D General The Role and Purpose of Evil Gods
As far as Erythnul is concerned, I think he works best as an Exarch of Gruumsh.
In the late 70s and early 80s I don't think many people had trouble with "anti-clerics", evil high priests and the like who got their powers from Demons and Devils. DDG formalised this by making the Archdevils and Demon Princes into Lesser Gods.
Chaosmancer
Legend
Personally? I think that the most important part is knowing who you want to be important. Working out why is for later. If you have no stories that seem like they require Zehir, the god of snakes and poison, cut him.
Then after you know who you defintely want, you can decide what sort of model you want to use to emphasize those actors.
1) The Status Quo: Good Gods, Evil Gods, weaker Archdevils and Demon Lords
2) The Dark Universe: Gods arise from concepts being worshiped, Archdevils and Demon Lords are part of the fabric of existence and have existed since before the gods
3) Power and Titles: There is no significant power difference between an Evil God and a powerful Demon Lord
Or any others. At that point it is a matter of tone and color, because to be frank, to an ant, all humans are giants, and for my money, you can't kill Archdevils or Demon Lords in any practical manner anyway, so in practical terms these differences rarely matter to the players.
Chaosmancer
Legend
Then you can run a true neutral warlock of Orcus. Again, what's your point here? Nerull is such a capital E Evil that you have to stretch to get Neutral, and you can easily do the same for any being in existence. His plans are MORE extreme than Orcus's. Nerull wants the destruction of all life.
So, they used to have clerics. Therefore "Fiends don't get clerics in base lore.... ever." is flat out wrong. They got them until 4e at least. Proven by the books I quoted. Partially because until mid-3.X Warlocks didn't even exist.
And if fiends cannot create paladins, because they are paladins of causes, then Gods can't really create Paladins either. If the point is that the paladin willingly swears an oath, because they have chosen devotion to a cause, then there is nothing that the Gods can do to bring that about that the Nine Hells can't. Sure, the gods can be more open, but that does not necessarily give rise to the levels of devotion needed for a paladin. Meanwhile, the forces of Hell are if nothing else, very manipulative, and taking an individual and secretly twisting them in isolation is what they exist to do.
But being rare also has nothing to do with the point. Since they can exist, an evil paladin could be part of the fight against the party.
So, at the end of the day, if we look to the time period when many of these Demon Lords and Archdevils were created, them being equivalent for the most part to the gods... is exactly what was intended. Sure, they didn't have cavaliers and paladins, but they did have clerics and secret temples. So, we really are losing nothing by going back towards that model that I can find.
Helldritch
Hero
This is so reducing. Why not have them all? I had a campaign world where all religions were in existence and it was a blast to play. Even back then, in the legend and lore you could be a cleric of a pantheon and not of only one god.
This allowed for religious wars in the where two countries worshipping different gods could fight each other, backed by their own pantheon. A war on the prime and heavens so to speak. The Greek pantheon went at war with the Norse one but were forced to drop their war when the Egyptian pantheon came after them both. All pantheon and countries came to a stale mate when the players uncovered that all this came from the Orcish pantheon that tricked all countries to fight each others until the Orcish Empire would be ready.
Of course, reducing this to three gods would be fine too. But with pantheon clerics with favored patrons (god) it gave us quite an interesting RP. 4 groups of players were involved in that campaign and some characters were good, neutral but there were also evil ones. Having a cleric of Seth working alongside a cleric of Odin while the cleric of Loki was holding the line was a great sight. In the final battle, we were two DM with 16 different players some were playing 2 characters. It was almost 50 characters that were involved in that war alone. And all of them name level and some around 14th. My DM skills were stretched to their limits but it was a blast to play.
It is much more easy to limit yourself to one pantheon per world. But when I embraced the multi-prime aspect of the Great Wheel, it opened so much more than the one dimensional aspect of a cleric of only one god. It opens up collaboration between various aspects of a pantheon and quite explains why a god such as Loki, Ades, Nergal, Nerul and such are tolerated by their respective pantheon.
My world of Center had all gods and pantheons and an access to all primes. It was more or less a map of earth with a few additional land masses. In that campaign, all primes were "reflections" of Center. Be it sci-fy or fantasy, you could find it there. A shame I lost all that material in a fire...
This allowed for religious wars in the where two countries worshipping different gods could fight each other, backed by their own pantheon. A war on the prime and heavens so to speak. The Greek pantheon went at war with the Norse one but were forced to drop their war when the Egyptian pantheon came after them both. All pantheon and countries came to a stale mate when the players uncovered that all this came from the Orcish pantheon that tricked all countries to fight each others until the Orcish Empire would be ready.
Of course, reducing this to three gods would be fine too. But with pantheon clerics with favored patrons (god) it gave us quite an interesting RP. 4 groups of players were involved in that campaign and some characters were good, neutral but there were also evil ones. Having a cleric of Seth working alongside a cleric of Odin while the cleric of Loki was holding the line was a great sight. In the final battle, we were two DM with 16 different players some were playing 2 characters. It was almost 50 characters that were involved in that war alone. And all of them name level and some around 14th. My DM skills were stretched to their limits but it was a blast to play.
It is much more easy to limit yourself to one pantheon per world. But when I embraced the multi-prime aspect of the Great Wheel, it opened so much more than the one dimensional aspect of a cleric of only one god. It opens up collaboration between various aspects of a pantheon and quite explains why a god such as Loki, Ades, Nergal, Nerul and such are tolerated by their respective pantheon.
My world of Center had all gods and pantheons and an access to all primes. It was more or less a map of earth with a few additional land masses. In that campaign, all primes were "reflections" of Center. Be it sci-fy or fantasy, you could find it there. A shame I lost all that material in a fire...
Helldritch
Hero
1) Nerull wants all life to end. Not to end all life. There is a big difference. So yes, a Neutral cleric of Nerul is possible. But unlikely..
2) Yes they had these clerics even in 1ed. But remember that these clerics only had access to 1st and 2nd level spells top. It was only through the introduction of Banak that they finally got "full power " clerics. I bet that if warlock existed then, that these clerics would not even have seen the day...
3) An evil paladin used to be an Antipaladin. He was a paladin corrupted by evil, usually demogorgon as only him had the full power of the Abyss as the "Prince" of all demons... Yes, canon there are antipaladins of other demons such as Orcus. This is your D&D. Nothing is ever set in stones... unlike some other games out there...
4) No, they were never intended to be gods in their own rights. That is why they fight the gods because they want the power that the gods have. They will tempt, trick and fool mortals into believing that they are as strong as the gods, but they are not. But they certainly want you to believe it. That is canon.
Remember that Asmodeus was put into hell with his host of fallen angels because he murdered his patron deity. He used to be a Solar and betrayed his patron god and brought all angels under him in his fall. Later we learned a bit more on how and why he betrayed (was it in 4ed? Can't remember), but it has always been there.
And no they did not have clerics but they did have cultists. And the few true clerics they had, were stuck with 1st and 2nd level spells...
Maxperson
Morkus from Orkus
Just to step in a bit. In 2e the listed worshipper alignment for Nerull was Any Evil. You could not be neutral.
I think it's right that a lot of prior clerics of fiends would be Warlocks under today's rules, but I think that there would still be a fair number of clerics. Warlocks are people who are making deals with fiends for power. Clerics are those that worship them as gods. It's a different mindset and someone who worships the ground that fiends walk on isn't going go the warlock route. They'll worship and gain clerical spells and abilities from their faith.
I will also note that you can be a warlock who makes deals with gods for power, so they need to be included on the side of good as well.
It wasn't a domain that made a paladin a paladin of a cause. It was the lack of a being to pledge to. In 5e a paladin of a god or other powerful being is not a paladin of a cause, even with the lack of a domain.
Clerics, paladins and warlocks vs. clerics, paladins and warlocks is more accurate. It's just the percentage of each that will vary between the two sides.
Maxperson
Morkus from Orkus
"Clergy
Nerull's clerics are feared throughout the lands as cold, calculating murderers. Named clerics of He Who Revels in the Slaying of the Living include..."
"Dogma
Nerull's faithful believe they will be rewarded for acts of murder, for every living thing is an abomination in the eyes of the Reaper."
That doesn't sound like neutrality would be possible for one of his clerics.
Not as PCs, no. As NPCs they'd exist all over the place. As I mentioned in my other post, whether you go to a fiend to bargain for power or whether you worship them involves two very different mindsets. The cleric mindset would still exist in a world where there are warlocks.
Helldritch
Hero
The neutrality part was in third edition if I remember correctly. Either a misspelled sentence or intentional, it opened that interpretation. Since people insists on not sticking to 1ed canon... I thought it would be appropriate to add this point. But as of 1ed. Yep, hard to accept neutrality there...
Maxperson
Morkus from Orkus
This is the 3e write-up.
"The god of death, Nerull, is neutral evil. He is known as the Reaper, the Foe of All Good, Hater of Life, Bringer of Darkness, King of All Gloom, and Reaper of Flesh. Nerull is the patron of those who seek the greatest evil for their own enjoyment or gain."
Then it goes into his domains, followed by...
"His worshipers, who include evil necromancers and rogues, depict him as an almost skeletal cloaked figure who bears a scythe, his favored weapon."
I'm not seeing a sentence of neutrality in his description.
Similar Threads
