A deciever god?

[jgbrowning]

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.

seconded....

joe b.

 

[heimdall]

Evil gods portraying other gods in order to assume their pantheon is nothing new... Cyric from FR did this (albeit it not with good gods). I can see what you're saying about good clerics eventually catching on, but gods should naturally be crafty and I could see an evil god pulling it off.

For instance, good clerics don't need to be region A when the evil god has his minions at work. So he sends good clerics off on pilgrimages of "faith" to another region he's not focusing on at the moment. Or evil god has been having a time with another evil god. Evil god A has a bunch of good clerics. The dread overlord who worships evil god B is preventing evil god A's church from getting started in the land. Time to send in the good worshippers to overthrow that overlord!

Things like this. Ultimately, the evil god's agenda moves forward, yet the good worshippers think they're making the world a better place.

 

[eris404]

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.

There's something like this in the Book of the Righteous. If I remember right, the church allegedly worships and serves a good goddess of something like the hearth or motherhood, but in reality the inner circle of the church actually worships and serves a very evil god in secret. If it would help, I can look it up when I get home and give you a few more details.

 

[Dedthom]

Leave us not forget our own "deciever pretending to be an angel of light"............

 

[Rhialto]

Actually, I've got something like this in Tur An Tiel...

And no, I'm not going to tell you which God is impersonating which...

 

[Dogbrain]

Okay, how about "Gods are allowed to 'cheat' a little." They're not mortals, after all.

So, evil god sets up some sad dupes. Evil god is smart and patient. Ultimately, though, it wants to either spread evil or at the very least make people question the value of Good.

The solution: Paladins!
Churn out a bunch of intolerant do-gooders who are wonderful as individuals but overall end up making the world more violent, more war-ridden, more polarized, less trustful, etc.

 

[DrZombie]

Another example is Iuz in Greyhawk, who imitates a slumbering barbarian god to unite the barbarian countries to invade a good kingdom. He is unmasked in the end but the damage is already done. The "good" lands have lost quite a bit of their fighting power in the war and the frontier is widely open.


On another note: power corrupts, and churches are no exception. Under the rules of this BB i can give no examples from "real" religions, but read your history books boys and girls, you'll be amazed.

 

[Wraith Form]

This thread sounds like every plot of the past 200+ issues of Thor the comic book. Loki is *always* impersonating the Big Golden-Haired One, tricking "foolish mortals"--including the Avengers, sometimes, and even occasionally fellow Asgardian gods--into thinking that he (Loki) is the Gigantic Hammer-Weilding Nancy-boy.

Who'da thunk?!?

 

[Kahuna Burger]

This thread sounds like every plot of the past 200+ issues of Thor the comic book. Loki is *always* impersonating the Big Golden-Haired One, tricking "foolish mortals"--including the Avengers, sometimes, and even occasionally fellow Asgardian gods--into thinking that he (Loki) is the Gigantic Hammer-Weilding Nancy-boy.

Who'da thunk?!?

the xmen alpha flight crossover with loki was pretty good too... he was grantng people abilities which could quite literally "save the world" but with a price and for the eventual purpose of gaining personal power....

Kahuna burger

 

[Wraith Form]

the xmen alpha flight crossover with loki was pretty good too... he was grantng people abilities which could quite literally "save the world" but with a price and for the eventual purpose of gaining personal power....

Exactly. And this is immensely "steal-able" for a D&D plot, wouldn'tcha say?