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

[Hexmage-EN]

As mentioned upthread, Fourth Edition's core setting justified the evil gods as having a role to play in protecting the world from other threats that could threaten their own ambitions. Bane and Gruumsh are interested in making sure their followers are strong enough to oppose these threats. Lolth's Demonweb Pits also help keep demons not on her side in the Abyss. One article from the magazines back then presented a faction of worshipers of Torog (an evil god of imprisonment, slavery, and torture) who went around making sure that other kinds of evil creatures stayed imprisoned.

Personally, I intend to adapt this concept to my own personal take on the Wildemount setting, making the story of the Betrayer Gods a biased narrative not entirely based on the truth.

Concerning demon lords, as presented over the editions there are a great many of them who, despite ruling layers of the Abyss, are too busy fighting other demon lords to establish a presence in the world.

5E also seems to be deemphasizing these obscure demon lords, as evidenced by the Salvage Operation update for Ghosts of Saltmarsh changing the villain's patron from Tharzax, demon lord of centipedes, to Lolth. Similarly, the Ghosts of Saltmarsh update to Tammeraut's Fate adds Orcus as the creator of the drowned dead, despite 1) the drowned dead of the original adventure were spawned by energy from an Abyssal rift, not by Orcus, and 2) the Forgotten Realms wiki entry for the drowned dead gives their demonic patron as a demon lord named Zuregurex, Lord of the Drowned Dead.

Of course, it could also be the case that the majority of demon lords you can find listed on wikis have since been destroyed by their competitors in the Abyss. Maybe Lolth killed Tharzax because she didn't want anyone having a monopoly on a different kind of crawling, venomous arthropod. Likewise, maybe Orcus killed Zuregurex, arguing that just because someone died by drowning that doesn't mean he can't create undead from them.

As for archdevils, it's established that Asmodeus is the face of the Nine Hells. Even powerful underlings like Mephistopheles and Glasya have a hard time forming cults since they all answer to Asmodeus.

 

[DEFCON 1]

It's for this reason that I liked the idea introduced in 4E that made Asmodeus and Lloth gods. With the game itself seemingly putting the idea of the gods above all the other potential enemies of the heroes... making at least a few of those devils and demons actual gods rose their groups up and gave them a bit more weight in my eyes personally.

As I've bandied about ideas for my own potential campaign world in the past, this question came up enough times that I tried a system wherein there weren't any pantheon of gods. Instead, there was one single unaligned overdeity that wasn't worshipped per se (a la Ao), and then all the beings actually worshipped by the peoples were the pantheons of Archangels (LG), Archfey (CG), Archdevils (LE) and Archdemons (CG). Each of them had their own domains they controlled and there wasn't a lot of overlap between them.

Since I've never actually run any games in my own setting (I keep using the existing ones already created because I'm ultimately lazy) I haven't seen how they work out in play. But I did like the idea that "evil cultists" were the devil worshippers and demon worshippers, not the ones who found divinity in storms or the ocean just because Talos and Umberlee were made "evil" for whatever reason.

 

[jayoungr]

One thing that always left me perplexed about evil gods in most D&D settings. If you are a faithful worshiper on one of them, you are guaranteed an afterlife of eternal torment.

Or your reward is that you get to be one of the tormentors? Which probably sounds great if you are down with following that deity in the first place.

 

[toucanbuzz]

...Maybe the solution is to keep gods above and beyond the kin of mortal thinking and not attribute them the morality that we humanoids have by actually assigning them alignments? They have their domains, but there's no moral decision as to whether what they control is good or evil? Just a thought.

Not sure if this is where you were headed, but I'll use the Dragonlance setting as an example. Its gods are simply the purest and most basic form of the alignments.

In that setting, when mortal spirits were accidentally created, Good, Evil, and Neutral had different philosophies of what should be done with them. After a cosmic fight between the kids broken up by the parental figure Highgod, the gods were allowed to each bestow a gift on the spirits, kinda like the 3 fairies in Sleeping Beauty.

Good: gave the spirits life and physical form so they could share control over existence and co-exist with peace and love. Hippies, if you will, but in its purest form sharing and caring.
Evil: (boo) gave these spirits hunger and suffering so that through need, the spirits would be enslaved and bound. Purest evil, to remove freedom by gaining power over others. The evil corporation if you will.
Neutral: gave them free will to choose good or evil. This was done out of the purest neutral philosophy of curiosity and to observe, and the only way we can keep our voyeuristic ways is for life to move forward. So, not too much good or evil allowed.

Finally, everything exists in balance. Too much good led to racial cleansing of "evil" races and eradication of suffering by extreme means such as reading minds of citizens to eliminate crime. Too much evil and existence withered because all evil did was consume the freedom of others to satisfy its eternal hunger.

As examples: Chemosh, god of the undead and fatalism. Fatalism is categorized as "evil" because Chemosh is anti-life and wants mortals to give up life as quickly as possible. He'll promise immortality through undeath, which then traps the mortal in eternal servitude. Evil in purest form.

We can analyze good in the same way with Majere, god of discipline and mercy. This is categorized as "good" because Majere wants to improve control over one's existence by hard work and austerity, and to discipline one's sharing and caring through merciful means. Good in a pure, cosmic form, to better the self and others instead of subjugating them.

 

[Kurotowa]

It's not wrong that "evil gods" is comes from a very specific and polarized view of the world. Your gods are never evil; it's that band of Other People who worship evil gods and false idols. All the more reason to kill them and take their stuff, or at the very least force them to convert to a true faith. For their own good of course.

If I were going to design a setting from scratch... yeah I'd totally do away with evil gods that only monsters and villains worship. Which is not to say that all gods will be good. No, I'd set it up so you have a united pantheon of gods that are generally respected as a whole. Just the one, no racial gods. Some are more benevolent and are begged for favors. Others are less nice and people pray to them to avoid misfortune or avert their attention. But the gods are the gods, and while many variant expressions of faith exist everyone agrees they're all worshiping the same pantheon. It's those lousy archfiends that sponsor malign cultists who have to be thwarted by brave heroes before they unleash monsters and destruction. Everyone can agree that those guys suck.

 

[Reynard]

I do. One is a Demon you can fight the other is a Storm that you can't.

There are equal numbers of ways to make the storm fightable as there are to make the demon unfightable. It's an RPG. There aren't any limitations of that sort.

 

[Xenonnonex]

Gods have portfolios. Spheres of influences. In the case of evil evil portfolios. Take tyranny. You can have gods and devils.
Gods have home realms in the Planes. And have always been more powerful then demons or devils.

 

[Bohandas]

Given that the thin distinction between how warlocks and clerics gains their powers, in a setting on which the Gods are a proven thing, I think they are redundant, even more if the power level between them is less variable than in previous editions.

To differentiate them a little more, I personally make the alignment of the gods a more flexible (ala Greek/Norse gods), while the planar Powers are dealing in absolutes.

But, yeah...they could be removed or merged without losing much.

My favorite take is having them all be Powers, and their types vary depending on their Plane of residence.

Abyss -> Demons -> Grummsh, Lolth, Demogorgon, Juiblex, Auril, Talos
Hell -> Devil -> Bane, Asmodeus, Tiamat, etc
Arvandor -> Archfey -> Corellon, Sehanine, Arvoreen, Titania

I agree, merging them is probably the best way to go. In my head I genreally treat archfiends, elder evils, and abominations as divine already.

Plus there's the issue of Lolth, who is frequently referred to as a demon lord even though she is a goddess

 

[aco175]

Do we go back to each race having their own gods with some being good and others evil. Recent editions have done away with most of this. Some could even have each god have aspects or the way they portray themselves be different for each race. For example, a god of war could be Clangeddin for the dwarves, Tempus for the humans, and Avereen for the halflings. The way each race worships the same god may differ slightly.

Not sure on doing away with evil portfolios as being something that is just based on how we perceive them. I think certain things could be universally evil, at least from the game terms and how the game is played.

 

[Bohandas]

Gods have home realms in the Planes. And have always been more powerful then demons or devils.

By some metrics at least. By others they may be less powerful.

For one thing, archfiends' control over their portfolios seem to be more universal (albeit less powerful), gods seem to be limited to small regions. Nerull is only the god of the undead in Flaness, but Orcus is the lord of the undead everywhere.

For another thing, archfiends seem to control larger territories on the planes as well. None of the gods control entire outer plames the way that Asmodeus does.