D&D General The Role and Purpose of Evil Gods

[Maxperson]

You know, there is a trick in late middle school early high school, where as part of your answer you repeat part of the question. That technique would really help when you try and pull this sort of mood of pettily poking holes in a bit of hyperbole and then declaring someone else can't follow a discussion.

Pot meet kettle. You get what I say wrong far more often than you get it right. Like, polar opposite much of the time. You should use that technique. Or do you think you're using that technique when you say, "So you're saying that everything goes up." right after I say, "Everything is going down."?

 

[pemerton]

You'd need hundreds of thousands or millions of worshipers for every deity in Greyhawk. So, just rounding to a million per god, you'd be looking at a population of the section of the continent where greyhawk is set as a minimum of 155 million people. And that is if every single person was a "true worshiper"

<snip>

this seems.... highly unlikely.

It is the only listings of his worshipers though. Sages, scholars, wizards and archmages. That's all it lists anywhere I look. And, amusingly, sages and scholars and philosophers and other terms that mean the same thing are also worshipping Rao (Greater), Lendor (Intermediate), Delleb (Lesser), Lirr (Lesser), Lydia (lesser) so we've got a massive split amongst these scholars.

Also, interestingly when I found Lendor, I also found this "Lendor's tiny amount of remaining worshippers are sages, old men, and others distant from everyday concerns. "

<snip>

with 300 gods of varying power level, I think my 155 million would be... and underestimate of the number of people needed to support this many deities. I think putting a nail in the coffin that people ever followed this rule at DnD headquarters

The 3E DDG "rule" was invented by whoever wrote the 3E DDG. The publication date for that book is 2002. So obviously this "rule" was not written when all the work on Iuz was done in the 1980s/90s. Nor was it written when Erik Mona consolidated all that earlier work in the Living Greyhaw Gazetteer (published in the year 2000).

That "rule" is an absolute irrelevance for trying to actually make sense of the mythology and cosmology of Greyhawk. You do that by reading Greyhawk material.

1e WoG Boxed set page 62:

View attachment 145124

Yes. I already quoted this upthread. It shows that the 3E "rule" is irrelevant to GH - unsurprisingly, given they had different authors at different times.

10. 17. None of it matters. Greyhawk gods are apparently independent of worshippers, which screws poor Demigod Iuz. Not that anything came close to saying that much, let alone most of his empire worshipped him, but now even that doesn't matter.

Hang on. So, just to be clear: having spent pages of virtual ink telling me and others that we are wrong to think that Iuz's status as a demigod has anything to do with the extent of his worship, you are now saying that we were right all along?

 

[Maxperson]

Hang on. So, just to be clear: having spent pages of virtual ink telling me and others that we are wrong to think that Iuz's status as a demigod has anything to do with the extent of his worship, you are now saying that we were right all along?

Unlike @Voadam who showed actual text saying that the Greyhawk gods are not linked to worship, you just showed supposition based on quotes like, "many clerics" and "more than very few worshippers." It's hard to argue against something that is said straight out.

In any case, Iuz remains a demigod, because his power is not linked to worship and he's been a demigod in every edition up to 3rd and I think 4th, but not sure. I see no reason to assume that he's risen in power now that 5th edition is here.

 

[pemerton]

Unlike @Voadam who showed actual text saying that the Greyhawk gods are not linked to worship

The text that Voadam quoted, on p 13 of the 3E DDG, concludes by saying "Boccob is infamous for his indifference towards worshippers." Gee, I wonder if anyone pointed that out upthread? And not by citing a basically irrelevant 3E sourcebook but by citing the actual Greyhawk sourcebook published in 1984?

Or to put it another way: that sidebar in the 3E DDG didn't spontaneously author itself: it is a recapitulation of what was already obvious on the basis of prior writings about gods like Boccob et al.

That is part of what makes this thread frustrating: you treat a throwaway remark in a 2002 sourcebook as more authoritative, in regards to the WoG, then the actual source materials published for GH in the 80s and 90s. That's not a defensible approach to textual interpretation.

 

[Maxperson]

The text that Voadam quoted, on p 13 of the 3E DDG, concludes by saying "Boccob is infamous for his indifference towards worshippers." Gee, I wonder if anyone pointed that out upthread? And not by citing a basically irrelevant 3E sourcebook but by citing the actual Greyhawk sourcebook published in 1984?

Indifference towards worshippers does not mean that 1) he doesn't have lots of them, or 2) that he doesn't get power from them. It wasn't until he provided a quote that explicitly said that the Greyhawk gods are not dependent on their worshippers that the matter was settled.

Or to put it another way: that sidebar in the 3E DDG didn't spontaneously author itself: it is a recapitulation of what was already obvious on the basis of prior writings about gods like Boccob et al.

3e also gave Boccob lots of worshippers.

 

[Faolyn]

Re: Boccob, most of the sites I've been to say "Boccob is honored with magical research and experimentation, with the burning of incense, the reading from books of arcane lore."

The reason I bring this up is that it might not be required that a person kneel in prayer with hands clasped while speaking ritual words. Every time someone thinks of a new way to cast a spell or reads through a spellbook, Boccob or Mystra get a bit of worship. Every time someone plants crops, Chauntea or Beory get a bit of worship. Every time someone makes a bigoted comment, Wastri gets a bit of worship. (Is there anyone like Wastri in the Realms?)

 

[Chaosmancer]

Pot meet kettle. You get what I say wrong far more often than you get it right. Like, polar opposite much of the time. You should use that technique. Or do you think you're using that technique when you say, "So you're saying that everything goes up." right after I say, "Everything is going down."?

Whatever Max, at this point you are tracking me down in other threads to tell people not to discuss the game with me. I'm through with this.

 

[Chaosmancer]

The 3E DDG "rule" was invented by whoever wrote the 3E DDG. The publication date for that book is 2002. So obviously this "rule" was not written when all the work on Iuz was done in the 1980s/90s. Nor was it written when Erik Mona consolidated all that earlier work in the Living Greyhaw Gazetteer (published in the year 2000).

That "rule" is an absolute irrelevance for trying to actually make sense of the mythology and cosmology of Greyhawk. You do that by reading Greyhawk material.

Agreed.

 

[Chaosmancer]

Re: Boccob, most of the sites I've been to say "Boccob is honored with magical research and experimentation, with the burning of incense, the reading from books of arcane lore."

The reason I bring this up is that it might not be required that a person kneel in prayer with hands clasped while speaking ritual words. Every time someone thinks of a new way to cast a spell or reads through a spellbook, Boccob or Mystra get a bit of worship. Every time someone plants crops, Chauntea or Beory get a bit of worship. Every time someone makes a bigoted comment, Wastri gets a bit of worship. (Is there anyone like Wastri in the Realms?)

That is one possible way to work the gods, and actually a major part of Eberron's theories on how the Soveriegn's operate.

I don't think it is often the intent of the various settings though. For example, if you were raised with no knowledge of any gods of strength, and there are say six of them, then when you are five and wrestling with your brother are you worshiping one of the those gods? I don't think so. I think worship, generally, has to be intentional. You don't worship Boccob by learning magic by itself, but if you learn magic and think about honoring Boccob by doing so, then you are worshiping them, in some small manner.

Again, it can work differently, but I think that the game has often made intentionality a major part of worship.

 

[pemerton]

It wasn't until he provided a quote that explicitly said that the Greyhawk gods are not dependent on their worshippers that the matter was settled.

The quote doesn't say anything about Greyhawk gods at all. It refers to the "deities of the D&D pantheon". Which is my point: I don't see how a sideways reference to Greyhawk in a work in which there is no express reference to the World of Greyhawk is carrying an authority for you (or anyone else) that you do not accord to the actual Greyhawk texts. It's very strange, and as I said above not defensible as an approach to textual interpretation.