D&D General The Role and Purpose of Evil Gods

[Maxperson]

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

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.

They overlap in the sense that a CEO and middle management overlap, which is to say not at all. The CEO is concerned with the bigger picture, not the small local stuff. Asmodeus is concerned with the multiverse and the infinite prime planes. Bane is concerned with Toril.

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

You've apparently never been in business at that level. A CEO cannot do the small stuff or the big picture suffers. He absolutely NEEDS the middle managers or the business fails.

 

[Chaosmancer]

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.

This one bothers me a lot. It implies that the gods can just dismiss the plans of Asmodeus or Yeenoghu. That their schemes and plots and plans to destroy or conquer the world are just theater that the gods can ignore.

And yet, that can't be right, can it? Because the entire plot of the Blood War is that if the Demons or Devils win, themn they might threaten the multiverse. So, those forces have to be serious threats. The schemes and agendas of those leaders can't be ignored or dismissed. So, we are right back to where we started. We have evil gods to give the good gods an foe they can't afford to ignore. Meanwhile, they can't afford to ignore Demon Lords and Archdevils... so we already have them fulfilling that same role.

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.

So, sure, some evil gods want to rule the world instead of destroying it. Just like the Archdevils want to rule the world. And a handful of the Demon Lords like Graz'zt. And there are beings like Erythnul and Nerull who want to destroy the world in an apocalypse.

I don't find discernible difference here either.

Points 3 thru 5 are middling to me.

Point #2 is potentially true, but there is no reason that we can't make it true of the other forces either. I guess in the end, it is more about "gods by other names" to me. They do all the same types of things, it seems strange to force them to be different just for the sake of being different.

 

[Chaosmancer]

They overlap in the sense that a CEO and middle management overlap, which is to say not at all. The CEO is concerned with the bigger picture, not the small local stuff. Asmodeus is concerned with the multiverse and the infinite prime planes. Bane is concerned with Toril.

You've apparently never been in business at that level. A CEO cannot do the small stuff or the big picture suffers. He absolutely NEEDS the middle managers or the business fails.

So, you are proposing that Bane serves Asmodeus. Just like the Archdevils do.

Because, in this particular case, they can't work for the same "company" otherwise. You can't be the lord of all creation, which bows to your iron rules, while someone else is doing the same thing with different rules. So, if they do work for different companies, then the "middle management" of Bane is far more like being a mom and pop shop while Asmodeus is the international global conglomerate. Which doesn't fit with the other ideas people have been tossing about with Bane being the bigger threat, and that's why evil gods exist.

 

[Maxperson]

So, you are proposing that Bane serves Asmodeus. Just like the Archdevils do.

No. It's an imperfect analogy(like all analogies are) in that sense. What I'm saying is that Asmodeus must look at only the big picture for his job like a CEO does. He has to be concerned with all of the prime settings in the multiverse and he cannot possibly become concerned with the little details and still be able to function. Bane on the other hand only has one world to be concerned with, so he can be focus on mid level details, like mid-management. He will engage plots and then direct lower management(his high priests and adventuring clerics) to fulfill those, leaving the little details to them.

They function like a CEO(Asmodeus), mid-management(Bane) and lower management(Banes high priests), but Asmodeus cannot tell Bane what to do. That doesn't mean that if tyranny on Toril dips 30% for 3 years straight that Asmodeus is not going to be concerned. He might direct a pit fiend or other major devil to figure out what is going on.

 

[DrunkonDuty]

Hi all,

<snip>

That got me thinking: what is the purpose / role of evil gods in D&D?

<snip>

Thoughts?

I guess it depends on how prevalent actual gods et.al. are going to be in the setting. Will the PCs actually meet some? If yes, then you probably need to consider whether they're naughty or nice on a personal level. But you only need to consider which god is more powerful if you're going to have god v. god stuff as an active part of your game.

If the PCs are never going to meet a god then I think it only really matters what the different churches in the campaign think are the differences between gods and demons. And they can all think very different, indeed outright contradictory, things compared to each other. Having such a plethora of mismatched and conflicting beliefs is of course reflective of the real world. And more importantly gives plenty of scope for conflict. So in this paradigm "evil gods" basically means "enemy churches."

Plenty of people upthread have mentioned various reasons why a polytheistic church might have "evil gods" and any or all of them can be used by different churches in their explanations for what's what.

For what's worth, in my games the difference between "god" or "demon" or "elder god" is just PR.

<rant mode engaged> Man am I sick of the conceit that all things Mythos related are by definition so much "moooaaarr awesome" than everything else. So much more awesome they have to be locked away in another reality that's so mind bending awesome that even the gods don't dare go there because they couldn't cope with all the awesome. When did this idea become the defacto paradigm of game settings? Who's to say Babylonian Marduk, no stranger to fighting primordial chaos, wouldn't chew Cthulhu up like Friday night's deep fried calamari?

 

[generic]

I think a lot of the disagreement which occurs surrounding any debate about the necessity of, and, perhaps, role of evil gods comes from a lack of a shared lexicon for what exactly a "God" is.

In my view, it's perfectly valid to say "for each setting, there may or may not be a justification", which is pretty much the case for most things in D&D cosmology.

If I had to think of the role which traditionally evil Gods play in established D&D settings, I might argue that many of the "evil" Gods are just stern gods, and that, perhaps, many of them are only viewed as evil due to their alien nature or strict customs. It could also be argued that evil Gods serve much the same role Titans did in Greek mythology, or maybe the role the Devil plays in Christian folklore. Worshipers of evil Gods could be, as they are in the case of Baal, shunned and cult-like, leading me to think that these evil Gods are probably the bedtime stories of kids across the Multiverse. If you go against your parents, servants of Baal will snatch you up in the night.

King fell ill? Blame those heathen Baal worshipers, accuse the townsfolk of conspiring to summon a demon.

 

[Mirtek]

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.

Nerull is a multispheric entity said to reap his grim harvest on a thousand worlds. Then you have the racial deities that transcend worlds as well

 

[Maxperson]

Nerull is a multispheric entity said to reap his grim harvest on a thousand worlds. Then you have the racial deities that transcend worlds as well

A thousand worlds is probably hype and the racial deities are not on all of them, and certainly neither anywhere near the scope of Asmodeus.

 

[generic]

A thousand worlds is probably hype and the racial deities are not on all of them, and certainly neither anywhere near the scope of Asmodeus.

One could make the same argument about Asmodeus, if it were not for his EXPLICIT inclusion in multi-planar affairs.

I agree with the note about Nerull.

 

[pemerton]

I'm not proposing turning demons and devils into gods. I'm going for more of a Judeo-Christian "God vs the Devil" feel, rather than D&D's usual polytheistic approach.

It's funny that D&D used to strive for a medieval Europe aesthetic except for its religions, which take a more pre-medieval/pre-Judeo-Christian approach.

This is the Conan and Gray Mouser influence. Conan was more ancient world polytheism based with a mix of historical and made up gods and that was the default template that was being riffed off of.

In REH's Conan stories, though, we have priests of Mitra and of Ibis who serve a similar role to "holy" men and women in Christian folk tales.

And clerics and paladins in AD&D were very mediaeval Christian - heavily armed and armoured miracle workers - until DDG pushed them in other directions!

One potential problem is that in Christianity, God is much more powerful than the Devil. D&D otoh presents a dualistic world where either the forces of good and evil -- terrestrial and cosmic -- are evenly matched or evil has the advantage.

I'm not sure that evil, at least in classic D&D, has a metaphysical advantage. Clerics are, on the whole, more potent than anti-clerics because they can raise the dead! And their are paladins but not, canonically, anti-paladins. (I don't think death knights and skeleton warriors count, as they are relatively rare even compared to paladins.)