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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Yaarel" data-source="post: 9810907" data-attributes="member: 58172">The 2024 Forgotten Realms books do deemphasize alignment, especially by referring to the alignment plane where a deity dwells, rather than their alignments themselves. I see two main reasons for the deemphasis.Probably the main reason is the religious adherents can be of various alignments. The same deity can have worshipers that form conflicting factions. Some factions can have an official ideology that is ethically aligned. The worshippers of the same deity can include Good factions and Evil factions. The deemphasis of a deitys alignment is mainly an emphasis on the alignments of the worshipers.An other consideration is the reallife folkbeliefs that inspire the D&D-isms. For example, in the Norwegian traditions of Norse animism, Odin might characterize as True Neutral with Evil tendencies (something like selfpreservation but at a world magnitude). Thor is an enforcer of oaths and a defender of civilization, being Lawful Neutral with Good tendencies. Loki, whose name literally means the "entanglement", is something like Chaotic Neutral with Evil tendencies (or arguably Good tendencies because Ragnarok makes possible a better world for humans). Despite their completely different alignments, they are all members of the same family in the same place. For D&D to divide them up into different into separate planes would make no sense. Because the Norse traditions are actually animisms, I feel strongly the D&D-ification of Norse personas should make them inhabitants of the Border Ethereal, sorta like Archfey. But the Greek folkbeliefs who have theistic gods have the same problem. The deities of different alignments can be members of the same family in the same place. For D&D, this means there can be Evil gods that live in a Good plane, and Good gods that live in an Evil plane. Because of the ethical dislocations, their actual location is useful to adventure to them, meanwhile focus on the alignments of the worshipers.A personal consideration is I view angelic figures as lacking free will. They are mirrors of human ethical behaviors. By extension, if the worshipers of "Celestial" Zeus are doing Good then their perception of Zeus also is experienced as Good. Likewise, if the worshipers start behaving badly, then Zeus too starts to do things that are increasingly problematic. In this subjectively existential, religious perspective, it really is the alignments of the worshipers that matter.Forgotten Realms is a setting. What is most relevant is what the religious adherents are doing on planet Toril. What the sacred figures themselves are doing somewhere else is peripheral at best. The 2024 Forgotten Realms books get the priorities right for the purpose of a roleplaying game.</blockquote>

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