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

[Incenjucar]

In a round about way, that's another problem I have with how D&D does evil gods: When they're the only game in town for their portfolio.

Want to be a fire cleric? Too bad, one of the designers burned themselves on a hot stove as a child and now the only fire god is evil.

The notion of evil fire gods is filthy paladin propaganda, and filth must be cleansed.

 

[Vaalingrade]

The notion of evil fire gods is filthy paladin propaganda, and filth must be cleansed.

With... with fire?

 

[Minigiant]

Different than how I see it. It's the deity's choice whether to take on any domains, and most do as doing so tends to both a) give said deity a purpose beyond just existing and b) attract followers. And deities will voluntarily change their domains to suit their potential followers, for example there's two deities in my setting who once had other portfolios and changed them in order to take in a species no other deity wanted: one being Hobbits and the other being Arctic Elves

I feel that in default D&D a god can't be the god of nothing.

Based on what I've read you can be the former god of something which means you lack a domain.. Which happens to dead gods and forgotten gods. Usually that makes you disappear or become a vestige or exarch.eL Demigods and Exarchs can be Divine without a domain though

 

[Voadam]

In a round about way, that's another problem I have with how D&D does evil gods: When they're the only game in town for their portfolio.

Want to be a fire cleric? Too bad, one of the designers burned themselves on a hot stove as a child and now the only fire god is evil.

Do you find that an actuality in practice?

The closest I can think of is if you used the 1e Cthulhu or Melnibonean pantheons as your chosen pantheon, where the majority were awful evil, or you were using the 2e Drow or the 1e/2e Orc/other humanoid pantheons as the exclusive ones. Although the Melniboneans had the neutral animal and elemental lords, including the neutral fire elemental lord who became the model for the later 1e Manual of Planes fire elemental lord who was an alternative to the 1e Fiend Folio Elemental Evil Fire one. If the Cthulhu Mythos is your exclusive pantheon it is going to be pretty grim across the board.

Usually the evil original D&D gods are associated with fairly malign things across the board and not neutral or good concepts, or the non-evil portfolios at least overlap with a non-evil alternative god. Wee Jass in Greyhawk is Evil and associated with magic, but so is Neutral Boccob and Chaotic Neutral Xagyg. Dragonlance has an evil scam artist contracts and deals god, but also a neutral merchant and commerce and wealth goddess.

 

[DEFCON 1]

In a round about way, that's another problem I have with how D&D does evil gods: When they're the only game in town for their portfolio.

Want to be a fire cleric? Too bad, one of the designers burned themselves on a hot stove as a child and now the only fire god is evil.

That's the problem with a lot of domains... there's nothing inherent in a lot of them to denote any sort of morality. Some domains do denote morality-- protection is generally "good", murder generally "evil"... but things like Civilization, Nature, The Seas, Determination, Magic etc.-- they can be used for good or evil. And thus there's no reason why the deity for it should have a set alignment in my opinion. Or at the very least if the pantheon is going to be anthropormorphized a la the Greek pantheon for example... the personalities of the gods should not get in the way of the reasons for their worship, nor should the worshippers all default to the god's personalities too. Just because a god of the sea is listed as "evil", it shouldn't follow that all worshippers/clerics/priests should be evil too. That just seems pointess.

 

[Vaalingrade]

That's the problem with a lot of domains... there's nothing inherent in a lot of them to denote any sort of morality. Some domains do denote morality-- protection is generally "good", murder generally "evil"... but things like Civilization, Nature, The Seas, Determination, Magic etc.-- they can be used for good or evil. And thus there's no reason why the deity for it should have a set alignment in my opinion. Or at the very least if the pantheon is going to be anthropormorphized a la the Greek pantheon for example... the personalities of the gods should not get in the way of the reasons for their worship, nor should the worshippers all default to the god's personalities too. Just because a god of the sea is listed as "evil", it shouldn't follow that all worshippers/clerics/priests should be evil too. That just seems pointess.

Oh yeah, that's another thing: evil gods are too dumb to understand that Healing and Protection are a good way to make the people you constantly send to war against technologically and magically superior foes (and why is THAT?) last longer. Which should be important as their belief is your food.

It would be like a modern nation sending their wheat farmers to fight a nation that just discovered Jaeger technology with no body armor or medics.

 

[RoughCoronet0]

In a round about way, that's another problem I have with how D&D does evil gods: When they're the only game in town for their portfolio.

Want to be a fire cleric? Too bad, one of the designers burned themselves on a hot stove as a child and now the only fire god is evil.

While I’m on the side of enjoying having evil gods and god-like beings in my world, I agree with this take. I feel like when it comes to a specific domain it’s best to either have multiple gods that can cover the wide spectrum of philosophies associated with said domain, or a singular god or godlike being that can encompass all of the multi-faceted nature of a given domain and the conflicts springing from various groups having vastly different interpretations of what that domain really is.

 

[Lanefan]

I feel that in default D&D a god can't be the god of nothing.

Based on what I've read you can be the former god of something which means you lack a domain.. Which happens to dead gods and forgotten gods. Usually that makes you disappear or become a vestige or exarch.eL Demigods and Exarchs can be Divine without a domain though

I long ago did away with the hard-coded split between greater, lesser and demi gods as it just never made sense.

I replaced it with a system where there's four "ranks" of immortals:

--- Founding deities - these are the 21 real deities that run (and in one case pretty much is) the universe.
--- Aspect deities - these are all the other hundreds of spell-granting deities that different species, cultures, etc. worship; all are facades of one of the 21 but extremely few mortals ever come to realize this.
--- Immortals - immortal beings who do not or cannot grant spells but who are otherwise more or less god-like; these would include lost or forgotten deities
--- Minions - the immortal servants of deities, these are much like their original AD&D versions; and are what a PC might one day hope to become.

 

[Lanefan]

Or at the very least if the pantheon is going to be anthropormorphized a la the Greek pantheon for example... the personalities of the gods should not get in the way of the reasons for their worship, nor should the worshippers all default to the god's personalities too. Just because a god of the sea is listed as "evil", it shouldn't follow that all worshippers/clerics/priests should be evil too. That just seems pointess.

I take the opposite view: every deity is intrinsically tied to and defined by its alignment and expects its Clerics to follow suit. Non-Cleric followers and worshippers have much more latitude, such that if a deity is, say, CG then its Clerics are also expected to be CG but it might draw followers and worshippers from any G or any C or even pure N, depending on other factors.

Put another way, a typical deity cares far more about what its Clerics do than what its lay followers do.

The exceptions are a very few cultures that have become pretty much monotheistic, in which case acceptance as a Cleric is based on culture rather than alignment. Orcs and Arctic Elves are two such in my setting: Gruumsh kills off anyone else who even thinks about becoming a deity of Orcs thus he's very intentionally made himself the only in-culture option they have, and to be a Cleric to him the only qualification is that you are an Orc; he'll soon enough tell you what to do and from there if your alignment wasn't Evil before, it is now. With Arctic Elves alignment is immaterial: if you're an Arctic Elf of any alignment you can become a Cleric to their one deity Tapoketa, and Tapoketa has exactly one domain: Arctic Elves.

 

[Vaalingrade]

Gods should be above alignment.

Why are they literally subject to mortal morality?