D&D 5E Are "evil gods" necessary? [THREAD NECRO]

[Dire Bare]

I'm not caught up on all 20 pages of this thread so far, so if I repeat something already hashed over, I apologize.

We don't have evil gods being worshipped in real life . . . and yet we have plenty of evil to thwart. D&D doesn't need evil gods any more than real life does.

There are certainly evil figures in mythology! But they are not actively worshipped other than by perhaps the random troubled person.

For example, Satanists? The kind that meets in abandoned buildings to worship Satan and sacrifice puppies, and the occasional homeless person? Not a thing. Fear of this type of Satanist exists, but not the actual Satanists themselves. The modern Satanic churches are actually atheistic organizations that use the trappings of Satanism to set themselves in opposition to mainstream society, which they see as corrupt and hypocritical.

But using evil gods in your D&D game is fine, as long as you don't link an "always evil" race to the worship of that evil god. If sentients choose the way of evil and chaos over that of law and goodness, well, that works!

A society that worships an evil god doesn't really make a lot of sense. The drow are a good example. Why follow Lolth whose creed brings so much pain and misery? Drow society evolved over the decades, largely thanks to Bob Salvatore, from being cartoonishly evil to a society of people . . . just like anybody else . . . living in a society where a small elite rule over society using fear and violence to maintain power. The average drow doesn't joyously worship Lolth, but only does so out of fear of Lolth's minions. Lolth's priestesses don't even really worship her, but engage in the priesthood in order to gain and maintain power.

 

[Lanefan]

Gods should be above alignment.

Why are they literally subject to mortal morality?

They're not subject to alignment. They ARE alignment. Big difference.

 

[Vaalingrade]

They're not subject to alignment. They ARE alignment. Big difference.

There's really not support in the actual game for this. They're subject to alignment like everyone else --with zero buy-in from them.

 

[Lanefan]

There's really not support in the actual game for this.

--shrug-- Maybe not, but since when did I ever look to the actual game to support my own cosmology?

 

[Minigiant]

I long ago did away with the hard-coded split between greater, lesser and demi gods as it just never made sense.

I replaced it with a system where there's four "ranks" of immortals:

--- Founding deities - these are the 21 real deities that run (and in one case pretty much is) the universe.
--- Aspect deities - these are all the other hundreds of spell-granting deities that different species, cultures, etc. worship; all are facades of one of the 21 but extremely few mortals ever come to realize this.
--- Immortals - immortal beings who do not or cannot grant spells but who are otherwise more or less god-like; these would include lost or forgotten deities
--- Minions - the immortal servants of deities, these are much like their original AD&D versions; and are what a PC might one day hope to become.

One of my settings has something similar. It like yours doesn't follow D&D defaults.

The top ranks one the Primordial Deities. These are the gods of the fundamental aspects of the world itself with an emphasis of aspects before life. They may have crafted the world or spring from the worlds creation. Therefore they have no real alignment and do not need Worshippers as they draw energy from these fundamentals aspects.

Next are the Titanic Deities who mostly have domains of things that occured once the world went into motion and life appeared. They have alignments but multiple ones as they encompass both the good and bad, order and chaos of their domain. Mother Earth is the Earth goddess dwarves see as their mother patron but she is also the CE goddess of Evil volcano and earthquake cults who pray for disaster in order to exploit the chaos and death. These gods are reliant on worshippers as the aspects of their domain are not fundamental. The sun can go out or be replaced. Magic can die. It is harder.

Then you have the Divines who are all racial or occupational patrons or have domains over things that come with intelligence. These are often the children of the two ranks above. This is where you see the straight aligned gods as they are more narrow in scope. The Mother Nature can bless your Duel or War but her sons are the good god of Duels and evil god of War (until they died). These are the spell granting type with the most casualties. When they die, they are often replaced by demigod children of gods and mortals, ascended monster, and ascended heroes/villains. They rely on worship the most as lack of it makes them vulnerable to godslayers and they cannot leech onto reality to stay powerful during ebbs and flows of their domain.

What it all means.

The God of War has been replaced multiple times as during times of peace, he or she is ganked and replaced. So the God of War is considered Evil as he or she are incentivized to nudge nations into war to stay strong.

How this affects the game (because it's pointless if it doesn't)

The God of War's Church is always nudging people into violence while the cults of non-divine patrons and cults of fallen war gods attempt to assassinate his priests and set themselves up for his fall. Meaning the wilderness is full of random cult battles.

 

[Lanefan]

One of my settings has something similar. It like yours doesn't follow D&D defaults.

The top ranks one the Primordial Deities. These are the gods of the fundamental aspects of the world itself with an emphasis of aspects before life. They may have crafted the world or spring from the worlds creation. Therefore they have no real alignment and do not need Worshippers as they draw energy from these fundamentals aspects.

Next are the Titanic Deities who mostly have domains of things that occured once the world went into motion and life appeared. They have alignments but multiple ones as they encompass both the good and bad, order and chaos of their domain. Mother Earth is the Earth goddess dwarves see as their mother patron but she is also the CE goddess of Evil volcano and earthquake cults who pray for disaster in order to exploit the chaos and death. These gods are reliant on worshippers as the aspects of their domain are not fundamental. The sun can go out or be replaced. Magic can die. It is harder.

Then you have the Divines who are all racial or occupational patrons or have domains over things that come with intelligence. These are often the children of the two ranks above. This is where you see the straight aligned gods as they are more narrow in scope. The Mother Nature can bless your Duel or War but her sons are the good god of Duels and evil god of War (until they died). These are the spell granting type with the most casualties. When they die, they are often replaced by demigod children of gods and mortals, ascended monster, and ascended heroes/villains. They rely on worship the most as lack of it makes them vulnerable to godslayers and they cannot leech onto reality to stay powerful during ebbs and flows of their domain.

Sounds good. Just one question: you consistently reference "the world", as if to imply this all only applies to one planet.

What about everywhere else; as in, all the other worlds and planes and places out there beyond that game's home world? Do you have a universal structure and if yes, how does the above fit in?

 

[Minigiant]

Sounds good. Just one question: you consistently reference "the world", as if to imply this all only applies to one planet.

What about everywhere else; as in, all the other worlds and planes and places out there beyond that game's home world? Do you have a universal structure and if yes, how does the above fit in?

This setting has other planes and places as well.

If you are going in the 5e Spelljsmmer sense, the setting was a crystal sphere filled with void and only a few primordials. As they created the stuffs of the setting, new gods (or allowed outside gods to manifest within it).

Kaos created the planets which birthed Mother Earth. Mother Earth birthed Mother Nature. Mother Nature created the Feywild and this birthed the Fey Queen and the Green King.

The Green King's name is Corellon. Some scholar suspect he snuck into the setting from another world right after a god of magic died then swapped portfolio to the elves he instantly created.

 

[pemerton]

In a round about way, that's another problem I have with how D&D does evil gods: When they're the only game in town for their portfolio.

Want to be a fire cleric? Too bad, one of the designers burned themselves on a hot stove as a child and now the only fire god is evil.

This seems to be an issue about who gets to author the fiction rather than evil gods per se.

 

[pemerton]

Gods should be above alignment.

Why are they literally subject to mortal morality?

Because they read the Euthyphro?

 

[SkidAce]

I long ago did away with the hard-coded split between greater, lesser and demi gods as it just never made sense.

I replaced it with a system where there's four "ranks" of immortals:

--- Founding deities - these are the 21 real deities that run (and in one case pretty much is) the universe.
--- Aspect deities - these are all the other hundreds of spell-granting deities that different species, cultures, etc. worship; all are facades of one of the 21 but extremely few mortals ever come to realize this.
--- Immortals - immortal beings who do not or cannot grant spells but who are otherwise more or less god-like; these would include lost or forgotten deities
--- Minions - the immortal servants of deities, these are much like their original AD&D versions; and are what a PC might one day hope to become.

I like this.

But trying to reconcile in the fact that I also like "local" deities, nature spirits and such, AND Immortals that follow the path to godhood like in Basic, is hard.

I modify and adjust and the pendulum keeps swinging back and fort depending on the adventure.