A deciever god?

[Kahuna Burger]

A glimmer of a plot idea... Would it be possible for an evil diety to impersonate a good one? Say a nasty * Evil diety whose end goal is to gather as much worldly power as possible in order to free itself from a celestial prison and act directly on the material plane (again). How would you work it?

idea #1 - clerics can be up to one step away from their god's allignment. The god only grants powers to * neutral clerics and instructs the general faithful in good ways.

Idea #2 - its really that they can only be a step away from what they percieve their god's allignment as, and if he puts up a good face during the rare communions, he can have good clerics who nonetheless are working towards his ultimately evil goals.

Idea #3 - Evil but well divination protected high priests create a false "good church." Lesser clerics are actually godless clerics by the SRD rules, who have taken on the allignment and domain paths taught by the religion, as opposed to those granted by the actual god. Once clerics reach a certain rank they are either corrupted into neutral or evil true clerics of the god, sent away to get converts somewhere where they won't see the final results or eliminated.

The point of this sort of plot? Mostly to have a sistuation where the PCs are stuck fighting a generally good and well intentioned organization which is supporting an evil end goal. And mucking with the allignment system.

Kahuna Burger

 

[arwink]

Heck, I'm the DM. If I say it's possible, then it is

I'd probably go for a combination of 1 and 3 (although I don't allow alignment clerics). Instead of allowing alignments, the evil god creates a more neutral "child" who opperates at Demi-deity power, granting the spells of the good creatures. The lower level priests worship the younger god, doing as they see fit alignment, while the upper levels of the church are generally inducted into the religions dual nature and are slowly warped to become followers of the original evil god.

This gives you the opportunity to split the eventual fate of the religion two ways, depending on how much the PC's enjoy the storyline. IT also means you can have a good PC that belongs to the evil cult, but doesn't find out until the upper levels.

Can I offer an idea 4?

The gods maintain their power by the faith of their worshippers, which means that their alignment is dictated by the dominant faith of their worshippers. Good gods can become evil if their faithful starts to slide, or if the perception of society at large suddenly turns against them. Evil gods can be redeemed by good people entering their clergy and staying strong enough to enforce change form within.

That'll throw PC's for a loop. And make PC clerics paranoid about their alignment to a frightening degree.

 

[Kahuna Burger]

Can I offer an idea 4?

The gods maintain their power by the faith of their worshippers, which means that their alignment is dictated by the dominant faith of their worshippers. Good gods can become evil if their faithful starts to slide, or if the perception of society at large suddenly turns against them. Evil gods can be redeemed by good people entering their clergy and staying strong enough to enforce change form within.

good one.

Idea #5 - ALL gods are evil or at best neutral. They gain power by the number of souls dedicated to them and use this power to battle amoung each other for dominance/gain pleasure/etc. Most gods have figured out that a combination "carrot and stick" aproach with themselves cast as the good guy gets the most worshippers, so there's a lot of "good" dieties. But the results of any of them gaining the upper hand would be equally bad.

In this cosmology, "devils and demons" are recast as the cosmic good guys. They are powerful demigods who have fallen from grace with their respective dieties and seek to bring down whatever god is currently most powerful to prevent anyone from "winning" (and as a result destroying the mortal world and resetting the game board).

Most of these ideas (including yours) have the advantage of being indistinguishable from the default cosmology at lower levels.

Kahuna burger

 

[Mapleaxe]

In my campaign, I have a modified version of #3. Some illithids have secretly taken control of a church dedicated to a NG Mother/Femininity goddess and over the space of several decades morphed it into a fertility cult (fertility cult --> lots of babies --> lots of brains). The low level clerics are worship the NG goddess, but by the time they get commune abilities, the illithid masters have secretly brainwashed them into worshipping their NE god of corruption. Anyone who gets too supicious is "sent off for missionary work"--funny how none of them ever come back.

 

[LostSoul]

Most of these ideas (including yours) have the advantage of being indistinguishable from the default cosmology at lower levels.

Kahuna burger

Which means that the players will get to uncover campaign secrets as they progress in ability.

It would be an interesting dilemma for a Good Cleric to find out that his god is totally Evil. Does he turn his back on his God or abandon his beliefs? Good RP.

 

[Lord Zardoz]

That really depends on how you wish to handle gods.

Most standard D&D settings handle gods as being the embodiments of ideas or principles. While Bhaal of the Forgotten Realms could probably go ahead and impersonate a good god, and even grant spells to good clerics, he could not do this on any signifigant time scale. Since he is not increasing the prevalance of his ideals in the world, he would grow weaker and eventually die out.

If your worlds gods can do as they damn well please because they do not derive power from their worshippers, then there is no reason that such a god could not just smite his followers on a whim.

What would work out best is to work your god like Hiddukel from Dragonlance. Your god can be much more pleasant on the surface, and promise boons in return for specific acts. And those acts could possibly never cause direct harm to the one who obtains the boon. But the acts will cause harm to others.

Some examples:

- "I will spare your child if you deliver unto me the child of another"
- "I will grant you prosperity if you would deprive another of it."
- "I will grant you youth if you never speak to your wife again."

In this case, the god is not much of a deceiver as he is a sh*t disturber. It would probably make for an intresting neutral god.

END COMMUNICATION

 

[LostSoul]

Most standard D&D settings handle gods as being the embodiments of ideas or principles. While Bhaal of the Forgotten Realms could probably go ahead and impersonate a good god, and even grant spells to good clerics, he could not do this on any signifigant time scale. Since he is not increasing the prevalance of his ideals in the world, he would grow weaker and eventually die out.

Unless he uses those "Good" clerics to advance his ideas.

 

[Lord Zardoz]

Unless he uses those "Good" clerics to advance his ideas.

True enough, but it is quite a stretch for a good cleric to manage to advance the ideals of a god of Murder without figuring out something is up. And that is my point. While such deceptions are very possible, they either do not last for long, or strain credibility just a bit too much.

I figure that such a deception is possible in some situations. If a god of violence incited his followers into a cruel and blood thirsty genocidal crusade against a foriegn land, that the sins could appear justified. But outside of that, I cannot think of many ways for a good god to masquerade as an evil god.

END COMMUNICATION

 

[Hunter]

Haha! I like your style Kahuna Burger!

One idea:

Baalzebul (Arch-devil)
"Lord of Flies?" ('lies?')-Lol!

Have him use his shape change power to impersonate some benevolent god of your choice.
Then have him use (fulfill another's) wish to give his newfound clergy spells.
In return for these wishes (for spell power) the clergy unkowingly prays and gives their souls to Baalzebul.
When the party helps to uncover this mystery the clergy will suddenly realize the've been duped. Any priest who gained spell like power from The Lord of Lies will have sold there souls to utter damnation in the afterlife.

~Hunter

 

[Limper]

You Sooooooooooooo need to read the Black Company Books! This is well covered topic in his works.

The last four books are likely about spot on for what your looking for however... more golike evil machinations.