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

[Deset Gled]

I am reminded of the story "Paingod", by Harlan Ellison.

Google doesn't give me a quick free (legal) version of the text, so here's a reading of it (from one of my favorite OTR shows): https://archive.org/download/MindWebs_201410/097 Paingod - Harlan Ellison.mp3

 

[Scribe]

That's a little too complicated for what I'm looking for. While it's true that the death of things creates nutrients for soil, typically gods of death are for the deaths of all living things, or deaths of humans/elves/insert race here. A portfolio is more broad than a minor aspect like breaking down dead things makes soil better.

I think of a Black/Green God in Magic, would be about Death/Rebirth as a cycle, similar to Nurgle in Warhammer/40K.

There's tropes out there for it if one wishes.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

I think of a Black/Green God in Magic, would be about Death/Rebirth as a cycle, similar to Nurgle in Warhammer/40K.

There's tropes out there for it if one wishes.

Have played some PbP god game stuff with two essentially-sibling dragon deities. Mine, effectively White-Red-Blue (center White), god of heroes, adventure, justice, luck, and aspiration; my friend's, Black-Green (center Black), god of evolution, greed, parasitism, undeath, and hunger. Interestingly, the latter was the mother of life in this world, having stolen the spark of life from the fires of the life-giving Second Sun (leaving a big black spot); mine, the father of mind, having created the beautiful but sterile First Sun, whose rays encouraged enlightenment rather than vitality.

Got some very interesting stories out of that stuff. W/R/U as light and hope and goodness but also sometimes being overbearing or zealous and dissociated from the natural order of things. B/G as creeping, corrupting, dangerous, but also supporting the individual and nature more broadly.

 

[Lanefan]

That's a little too complicated for what I'm looking for. While it's true that the death of things creates nutrients for soil, typically gods of death are for the deaths of all living things, or deaths of humans/elves/insert race here. A portfolio is more broad than a minor aspect like breaking down dead things makes soil better.

Yeah. Real life mythological gods had some disparate portfolios, but I prefer the gods of my game to be a bit cleaner and have one portfolio or a few closely related ones. I wouldn't create a wisdom and war god for my game.

I don't mind deities sometimes having something a bit odd-looking in their portfolio.

For example, my version of Clanggedin covers war, battle, death - and poetry.

 

[gamerprinter]

Necessary, no.
Useful, yes.

I share this response. I'm interested in telling great stories, beginning with a sound premise, and then letting the characters define how everything goes, and evil gods, and evil major powers struggling against the forces of good make great baseline stories. I don't every want to remove 'evil' from games - they are the necessary opposing force in most cases. So while evil gods aren't necessary to my game, their absence isn't necessary either, so they aren't absent from my game...

 

[Raiztt]

In a world where agnosticism is not an option, i.e.: it is an objective fact of the world that powerful beings exist that are called gods and have significant power to determine how pleasant or unpleasant your afterlife is...

I think the answer is an extremely firm "Yes, they are necessary" if you want people to act in anyway approaching plausible behavior. I will explain:

Some loose premises:
1.) We know that gods exist
2.) There are no "evil" gods who might shelter or protect evil do'ers in the afterlife
3.) We know that "good" gods punish evil do'ers in the afterlife
When you combine these three loose premises together, it would make no sense that anyone would ever actually be evil. It would be like saying "If you do 'x' you will be punished in the most extreme and eternal way possible" Why would anyone choose to do 'x' given the knowledge of premises 1 - 3?

 

[cbwjm]

I don't mind deities sometimes having something a bit odd-looking in their portfolio.

For example, my version of Clanggedin covers war, battle, death - and poetry.

I have a god in my setting called the Protector who a the god of war, protection (particularly the strong protecting the weak), honour, and cats.

Cats I just threw in there because I thought it would be cool to have lions in his iconography, but then realised that it works well as cats protect food supplies from rats and mice.

 

[Oofta]

I don't mind deities sometimes having something a bit odd-looking in their portfolio.

For example, my version of Clanggedin covers war, battle, death - and poetry.

Isn't war poetry kind of like death metal?

More seriously, there is a whole genre of war poetry.

 

[pemerton]

Some loose premises:
1.) We know that gods exist
2.) There are no "evil" gods who might shelter or protect evil do'ers in the afterlife
3.) We know that "good" gods punish evil do'ers in the afterlife
When you combine these three loose premises together, it would make no sense that anyone would ever actually be evil. It would be like saying "If you do 'x' you will be punished in the most extreme and eternal way possible" Why would anyone choose to do 'x' given the knowledge of premises 1 - 3?

Because they're less than fully rational?

 

[Voadam]

I don't mind deities sometimes having something a bit odd-looking in their portfolio.

For example, my version of Clanggedin covers war, battle, death - and poetry.

My favorite is Mars, God of War and . . . Agriculture.