D&D General The Role and Purpose of Evil Gods

[Voadam]

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.

In 3e clerics can be one step away from their deity's alignment. So All NE gods can have Neutral clerics, in 3e.

 

[Maxperson]

In 3e clerics can be one step away from their deity's alignment. So All NE gods can have Neutral clerics, in 3e.

Yes and no. It doesn't say "clerics can be one step away." It says, "Some clerics are one step away," making it deity dependent. You might see a god of justice with LG and LN, since justice can involve both aspects. You will not see a cleric of a god where his clerics are murderers who delight in slaying the living be neutral. Neutral is not an alignment that fits the god, so those clerics are not part of the "some" mentioned.

 

[Voadam]

Yes and no. It doesn't say "clerics can be one step away." It says, "Some clerics are one step away," making it deity dependent. You might see a god of justice with LG and LN, since justice can involve both aspects. You will not see a cleric of a god where his clerics are murderers who delight in slaying the living be neutral. Neutral is not an alignment that fits the god, so those clerics are not part of the "some" mentioned.

There does not seem to be any indication that it is deity dependent for whether they can be one step away, just the relative numbers of those who are. But there is a restriction against being straight neutral neutral that I did not remember.

Page 30 of the 3.5 PH under the alignment section of the Cleric class description:

"Typically, a cleric is the same alignment as his deity, though some clerics are one step away from their respective deities in alignment. For example, most clerics of Heironeous, the god of valor (who is lawful good), are lawful good, but some are lawful neutral or neutral good. Additionally, a cleric may not be neutral (that is, neutral on both the good–evil axis and the lawful–chaotic axis) unless his deity is also neutral."

So you can be a Lawful Neutral cleric of the LE God Asmodeus or a Chaotic Neutral cleric of CE Demogorgon if you go with his 2e god status, but you cannot be a Neutral cleric of NE Nerull in 3e.

 

[HaroldTheHobbit]

You don't need to justify it. I understand.

Everyone reads Inferno, but who bothers with Paradiso?

Who is the protagonist of Paradise Lost?

Do you watch Jaws because of the scenic New England setting (okay, it's supposedly a fictional town in NY, but we know the Vineyard when we see it) ... NO. Give me the shark.

Good is boring; evil ... is fun.

I was going to give a pretentious reply around without good no evil yada yada...but no, you are absolutely right

 

[Maxperson]

There does not seem to be any indication that it is deity dependent for whether they can be one step away, just the relative numbers of those who are. But there is a restriction against being straight neutral neutral that I did not remember.

Page 30 of the 3.5 PH under the alignment section of the Cleric class description:

"Typically, a cleric is the same alignment as his deity, though some clerics are one step away from their respective deities in alignment. For example, most clerics of Heironeous, the god of valor (who is lawful good), are lawful good, but some are lawful neutral or neutral good. Additionally, a cleric may not be neutral (that is, neutral on both the good–evil axis and the lawful–chaotic axis) unless his deity is also neutral."

So you can be a Lawful Neutral cleric of the LE God Asmodeus or a Chaotic Neutral cleric of CE Demogorgon if you go with his 2e god status, but you cannot be a Neutral cleric of NE Nerull in 3e.

Yes, yes there is an indication that it is deity dependant. That indication is the qualifier "some." If it wasn't deity dependent, there would be no qualifier.

If the cleric does not make sense for the God, he will not get spells and/or choose to worship that god. No neutral cleric will be acceptable to Nerull and no neutral cleric is going to run around murdering with glee like Nerull's clerics do.

 

[Chaosmancer]

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...

What are you even talking about? No one is talking about how we need only a single pantheon. Nothing you are talking about has anything to do with the discussion at hand.

And yes, you can have great games with a variety of structures, but that wasn't the question. The question is "what is the role and purpose of evil gods" with the understanding that this is being asked as opposed to just using Archdevils and Demon Lords. The fact that you can have a campaign focused on pantheons going to war has nothing to do with that question.

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..

Huh? Are you trying to convince me that Nerull is... passive? That he doesn't go out and do anything to achieve his goals? At that point I don't care about being a neutral cleric (which, again, you can be a neutral warlock of Orcus too) but that he is utterly boring.

But since he creates clerics and charges them with holy missions... like ending all life. I think you are splitting an non-existent hair.

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...

So... they existed. Which means that the statement that they never existed is still wrong. We can theorize that if the warlock existed when it didn't exist that things might be different, but we don't know that. Because at that time the warlock didn't exist. They were clerics instead.

Also, in the sources I listed for 3.X where the clerics got their power, there was no limit on cleric spells. Additionally, "Yes, they get clerics, but they are weaker than adventurers" is kind of a moot point. Most people are weaker than adventurers. Getting a 3rd level spell means being 5th level, and that is significant.

And now that a cleric powered by their faith in an abstract concept isn't limited to 1st and 2nd level spells max, there is no reason to assume that the same would hold true now. Especially since we can... you know... change that. Especially since if the entire reason evil gods exist is so that we can have 5th level evil clerics... we don't need them, because the cleric who worships the concept of slaughter does just as well as the one who worships erythunul.

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...

Thank you for confirming I was right.

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.

So what is the purpose of Nerull, Bane, Erythunul, Hextor, ect ect ect. They fight the gods too, is it because they want the power of gods? No. It is because they want to destroy their rivals.

The only reason we are talking about the power difference between gods and Archdevils and Demon Lords is because people say that the reason we need evil gods is because they are more powerful than Archdevils and Demon Lords. As though Asmodeus is such a push-over that you need super Asmodeus with even more powers to stand as an even greater threat.

But, is that the only reason these evil gods exist? to be bigger sticks to the already immensely powerful evil beings?

Thinking it through, if you made all of the evil Gods not tied to a racial pantheon some version of Archdevil or Demon Lord, and allowed them to have clerics.... you lose nothing. Though, you would be even more inundated with copies. No one has actually given a solid reasoning for these things to exist except to decry taking them away because that "limits our options". But, the OP is making a homebrew world and WANTS to limit options. So if the biggest concern is that getting rid of evil gods means they got rid of evils gods... that isn't a big concern.

 

[Maxperson]

Huh? Are you trying to convince me that Nerull is... passive? That he doesn't go out and do anything to achieve his goals? At that point I don't care about being a neutral cleric (which, again, you can be a neutral warlock of Orcus too) but that he is utterly boring.

But since he creates clerics and charges them with holy missions... like ending all life. I think you are splitting an non-existent hair.

A person who "follows" Nerull, but does not actively go out and murder is not someone who is actually following Nerull. If that person isn't going to actually engage in what Nerull expects from his clerics, he's not going to get spells.

So what is the purpose of Nerull, Bane, Erythunul, Hextor, ect ect ect. They fight the gods too, is it because they want the power of gods? No. It is because they want to destroy their rivals.

The only reason we are talking about the power difference between gods and Archdevils and Demon Lords is because people say that the reason we need evil gods is because they are more powerful than Archdevils and Demon Lords. As though Asmodeus is such a push-over that you need super Asmodeus with even more powers to stand as an even greater threat.

But, is that the only reason these evil gods exist? to be bigger sticks to the already immensely powerful evil beings?

No, of course not. Their purpose is what they have been since 1e. To embody some philosophy, belief or aspect of the local world. Bane embodies the aspect of tyranny as it exists on Toril. Demon Lords and Devils are not local beings to settings in the same way that the gods are.

No one has actually given a solid reasoning for these things to exist except to decry taking them away because that "limits our options". But, the OP is making a homebrew world and WANTS to limit options. So if the biggest concern is that getting rid of evil gods means they got rid of evils gods... that isn't a big concern.

Not only did I give to you above, but I gave it pages ago. Being the embodiment of local beliefs and aspects of the setting is a solid reason for the evil gods to exist. It's the same reason that Loviatar(evil Finnish goddess of death, pain and disease) exists, Apophis(evil egyptian god of chaos) exists, and Whiro(evil Maori god of darkness and evil) exists. The same need that brought about these myths is also present in D&D settings.

 

[Parmandur]

Hi all,

I've been doing some preliminary work on converting an older edition adventure to 5e. I am planning on setting it in a homebrew world of my own devising, which has religions / spiritual traditions borrowed from such sources as Game of Thrones and Dragon Age, both of which borrow from real world traditions, of course.

While in the process of doing some of this work, I came across an evil NPC who is written up as a cleric of Erythnul, the Greyhawk god of "hate, envy, malice, panic, ugliness, and slaughter" (to quote one source Google found for me).

That got me thinking: what is the purpose / role of evil gods in D&D? Why do we have gods of (un)death, murder, strife, disease, tyranny, slaughter, etc? Especially when you consider that D&D also has demons, devils and other foul entities that embody and promote all of those things. Why the overlap?

Looking at the real world pantheons included in the 5e PHB, the evil gods are primarily gods of trickery, gods of magic (which, in the real world, has historically had sinister connotations), gods of war/battle, gods of predators like crocodiles and serpents, gods of the elements like storms and the sea (which can be viewed as "uncaring to the point of cruelty"), and gods who serve as judges of the dead/keepers of the underworld. These gods all make sense to me in one way or another.

What doesn't make sense is having gods who fulfill basically the same function as demons and devils and Lovecraftian Far Realm entities. Why have a god of tyranny like Bane, when you also have archdevils like Asmodeus and Levistus who promote tyranny? What does Bane have to offer someone that Asmodeus et al can't also offer? Why have a god of chaos and murder like Bhaal when you've got demons that are all about that sort of thing? Why have a god of death/undeath like Myrkul when you've got a "demon prince of undeath" in the form of Orcus? What sets Tharizdun apart from Cthulhu and Hadar and their ilk?

For my setting, I am taking the same approach as Eberron and making it so no one knows for sure if the gods and god-like beings exist. I am now also considering getting rid of any gods that overlap with the demon princes and archdevils and Great Old Ones and the like. Instead of a cleric of Erythnul, I might make the aforementioned NPC a fiend-pact warlock.

In my setting, I might also make it so the gods are all about salvation -- that is, saving their followers from the damnation that comes with selling their souls to the fiends and other evil entities. Instead of good gods/entities vs evil gods/entities, the spiritual conflict of the setting would be gods vs fiends. Evil is seductive, so the fiends can be like "The gods are the ones who want to enslave you; we just want to give you your freedom -- the freedom to do whatever you want, without having to obey some stuffy god's rules". Plenty of room for nuance still. There just wouldn't be any clerics of death and murder and that sort of thing. They'd all be cultists, and if any of them have magic, it would most likely be of the warlock pact variety (with the more fighter-ish types being paladins of conquest).

Thoughts?

Not reading any of the thread, one book I an think of that gives a fair bit of thought to that is actually the SCAG: the section on gods actually goes into the theological and psychological reasoning of those who worship evil gods.

 

[Minigiant]

Just to refocus

What are the roles and purposes of evil gods?

1) They are godly opposition.

By being gods, they are threats to the agendas of good gods that cannot be ignored or dismissed. Also by they can themselves ignore and dismiss lesser powers, good or evil.

2) (Modern Settings) They can one with aspects of the world and affect or be affected by them.

In many modern adventure settings, gods have a stronger link to their portfolios. They might fully or partly control their portfolios. Evil gods might gain strength from each action in their portfolio. Whatever aspect of the world they are linked to becomes evil. However if it is vital, they will still be prayed to be blessed while involved in those actions.

3) (Modern Settings) They can create clerics.

In post 3e D&D, only gods can create clerics. This includes evil gods. If a DM wants an evil cleric enemy or the player wants to play a cleric worshiping an evil entity, the character must worship an evil god. The modern lore of warlocks and binders stripped clericing from anyone who lacks a true divine rank.

4) (Loose Pantheons) They can be prayed to by good characters.

Like I said before, gods in some settings might be linked to an aspect of the world. So prayers involving their portfolio might be performed by the good. If you make a war god evil, characters in a war might pray to them and do questionable acts for their blessings.

5) (Tight Pantheons) They might ally with good gods.

If the main pantheon is like a family, even the evil members might team up to fight a enemy of the family. Make whoever your want to be an evil god. However they might help fight the Great Old Ones if one wakes up. The Church of Thor and Church of Loki might call a truce to bust mindflayer skulls.

6) They might be pro-status quo.

I say it here. Apocalyptic evil gods are boring and often dumb to me. Just my opinion. I tend to prefer evil gods who want a world to rule over. So I like the idea of evil gods actively preventing nondeities with destructive ambitions form getting any divine ranks. So i like the idea of evil gods attacking, subjugating, or eliminating major non-divine powers. Especially those of similar styles who might covet their portfolio.

So yes. The Evil God of War Ares should be instructing his church to smite war demons because he doesn't want the Demon Prince of War to shank him in his sleep for his sweet sweet divine spark. And he might as Athena for help.

 

[Chaosmancer]

A person who "follows" Nerull, but does not actively go out and murder is not someone who is actually following Nerull. If that person isn't going to actually engage in what Nerull expects from his clerics, he's not going to get spells.

This doesn't seem to be disagreeing with me. So, I assume you are agreeing with me instead?

No, of course not. Their purpose is what they have been since 1e. To embody some philosophy, belief or aspect of the local world. Bane embodies the aspect of tyranny as it exists on Toril. Demon Lords and Devils are not local beings to settings in the same way that the gods are.

So they completely overlap. Because Asmodeus also embodies a philosophy and belief. Sure, he isn't "local" but that doesn't matter in 95% of campaigns, unless you are playing spelljammer or planescape. If you are playing on a single world, then they might as well be the same thing.

I mean, "Bane represents Tyranny on Toril, while Asmodeus represents Tyranny everywhere including Toril" really makes Bane seem entirely pointless.

Not only did I give to you above, but I gave it pages ago. Being the embodiment of local beliefs and aspects of the setting is a solid reason for the evil gods to exist. It's the same reason that Loviatar(evil Finnish goddess of death, pain and disease) exists, Apophis(evil egyptian god of chaos) exists, and Whiro(evil Maori god of darkness and evil) exists. The same need that brought about these myths is also present in D&D settings.

But, again, if they are just doing the idential thing to the Demon Lords and Archdevils, just on a smaller scale, then what is the point of it? You may have Loviatar as a goddess of death, pain and disease, but we also have Anthraxus, a Daemon Lord who embodies the concepts of disease and painful death. But, in your version, Loviatar is smaller potatoes.