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Let's assume for the sake of argument you're right. We're not just talking about any matriarchy, we're talking about "the most matriarchal society in D&D". Of the spectrum of matriarchies, these people are at the extreme end. Even if not all matriarchies consider women superior to men, this...

I'm pretty sure the equation of spiders with evil in modern fantasy derives almost entirely from the arachnophobia of one J.R.R. Tolkien. In folklore, they're far more commonly expert crafters, tricksters, and symbols of good luck. The worst depiction I can think of off the top of my head is...

A lot of weird gender and sexual hangups are all mixed up together in our classic picture of the drow -- there is, as you mentioned, a rather improbable amount of whips and chains. Is their villainous matriarchy specifically an issue, though? Like, imagine the most matriarchal society in D&D not...

I haven't seen a single person here say that the PCs should be the only characters of consequence. The argument is that they should be among the characters of consequence. And that when NPCs of consequence look like this Zaknefein does, the message is that the PCs are not in the same category.

Sure. But then you've got the guy who has somehow "rolled" at least one 18 on every character he's made for the past forty years. The Forgotten Realms is that guy.

Because players, especially those playing in an established setting like the Forgotten Realms, are at the table to play the same sorts of adventures they read about Drizzt and Co. having. These NPCs are not gods or monsters; they're adventurers supposedly just like any PC. So if rules come out...

Powerful NPCs should look like powerful PCs. They shouldn't look like PCs that cheated on their ability score rolls.

I mean, yeah, you have to assume at least one manual of quickness in action too, but I don't think anybody's disputing that it is technically possible to achieve these scores. They still remain implausible, and unnecessary for this character.

But Like Why though

Not legal. His magic items are enumerated, and this is not among them.

You can tell whether a god is good by their actions, same as anybody else. Mass killing? Doesn't really qualify. Doesn't even matter who's getting killed. In real life, if somebody advocates a strong "just shoot all the criminals" position, I think most of us would agree that this is not a good...

Uh... I must have missed the part of the PHB where it explains that.

This is why it's important to talk with your players about their desires and expectations and build a campaign that works for everybody. But there's room in this hobby for both dark settings and optimistic settings. I don't think we need to push back against one or the other with what-ifs.

I see where you're going with this, but if the sun is a step above/outside all these assorted pantheistic deities, doesn't that make them more appealing as an object of worship, at least to a certain mindset?

I suspect the number of followers Nerull has is closely related to the number of undead that exist. In settings where there are entire nations of the dead, Nerull probably does fine for himself.

I've got a similar reaction to the notion of racial or cultural pantheons. Domain overlap in real-world pantheons occurs because different groups of people told different myths to explain the same natural phenomena. The Greeks came up with Apollo, the Egyptians came up with Ra. If I see the same...

I feel like -- and this isn't just a D&D thing, it's a general RPG culture thing -- we're so accustomed to assuming "level-appropriate opponents" that we have evaluatory tunnel vision. When looking at an NPC or monster or whatever and deciding if they're sufficiently badass, we subconsciously...

The objective here seems ambiguous to me. Is it to rethink Gruumsh specifically? Or is the question more like what could a chief deity of the orcs look like besides Ol' One-Eye?

Ah, yes, Forgotten Realms NPC ability scores. Because we wouldn't want players to get the mistaken impression that the PCs were actually important.

I don't think the timeline matches up with the theory. As others have said, there have been indications that they're backing off on UA articles for a while now. And I don't think reexamining the game this way would occupy 100% of their time and attention anyway.