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

[SkidAce]

The notion of the gods needing worship - and their power being proportional to their worshippers' number (and quality) comes to D&D primarily through Leiber (Lean Times in Lankhmar and Under the Thumbs of the Gods) and Moorcock (where it's pretty ubiquitous), but the trope has a long history. Also in Fred Saberhagen, IIRC.

The Epic of Gilgamesh suggests that the gods would starve without their worshippers' sacrifices; Aristophanes in the Birds has a flock block the smoke rising to the gods and threaten to starve them - these are related ideas.

It crops up biblically - you defeat your neighbour, kill and enslave the population, steal the idol and other temple goods (usually to melt down) and disempower the god.

Much more recently, Pratchett and Gaiman.

I think it's a pretty persistent idea.

+1 for Saberhagen

 

[Maxperson]

They weren't immortal and lacked their Divine power during the Time of Troubles.

That's actually not true. They were all avatars and so had the divine rank of their avatars. They just didn't have access to their home plane and so if they died, they died permanently.

The gods literally had their followers but not access to their domains.

They had access to everything their avatars did, including domain abilities and used them.

That's the point. They weren't gods at the time due to their loss of divinity.

All of them were in fact gods. Avatars have divine rank and are gods. It wasn't called the Ex-god Crisis. It was the Avatar Crisis.

 

[Bohandas]

\
Need no, though you would need to raise the power of demon lords and arch devils (which I do anyway) to really fill that void (in traditional D&D). That being said, it is not unusual (though not universal) to have an evil deity or two in RL myth. Sometimes the evil deity is in league with the demons and devils. Heck, in D&D traditionally some gods make the Abyss their home. However, it is not uncommon for demons and devil and such to fill the void of evil. Sometimes the lord of the demons is a god and sometimes not.

Both options work.

In a lot of mythology which deity is "good" and and which is "evil" can be pretty arbitrary. A lot of times it's pretty clear that the gods don't care what happens to mortals outside of a handful of favored pets, and the only thing that makes a god "good" or "bad" is whether the author of the myth sees the god as favoring them or as favoring the author's enemies

It's arguable that the RPGs that are truest to real mythology are Call of Cthulhu and Warhammer 40k

 

[Warbringer]

Ontologically, no. There is no need for evil to be an alternative view of the ideals in the universe.

Orthogonally, yes. Some thing of equal power needs to be narratively present ( and yes no gods at all is equally as valid), but if good gods exist then something of cumulative “evil” must exist, else why has evil not been vanquished? Calling them gods or demons becomes difference without differentiation.

in my own campaign their are gods of good and evil that coalesce around the Blessed Host and Dark Hand (yeah, nicked from Ebberon with a cosmetic change) - they quibble amongst themselves manipulating the intelligent races almost like currency for position over each other, but they are vested in the it all existing.

”Evil” (capital E ) is the Chained God who just wants to undue his creation, because it’s flawed. Together, the gods defeated The All Seeing Father, caged and proceeded to carve up HIS creation while keeping him Caged.

Ultimately, who is good or evil? Is the Chained God “wrong”, Is seeing the faults of his creation would what comes next not have been better, indeed “Good”.

 

[Lanefan]

Im saying it the final death is not of being forgotten but of domain loss.

I don't tie deities to domains that tightly. There can easily be deities who don't bother with any domains, or whose "domains" can be so obscure that no mortal - and maybe not even other deities - will ever figure out what they are..

A deity that loses all its followers doesn't die - it's still immortal, after all - but does lose most of its powers.

Worshippers don't keep a keep a god up. Control of their domain does. D&D gods die with mortal worshippers an strangely not small amount of times.

Worshippers help you keep your domain/portfolio.

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.

 

[Lanefan]

In default 4e, the gods created mortals.

In Roger E Moore's myth of the Orcs (from Dragon magazine 62, reprinted in the original Unearthed Arcana Appendix S), the gods bring mortals into the world.

Well, into the universe at least. How those mortals then a) evolve over stupendous amounts of time and b) end up getting to this specific world are entirely different questions.

This is not an unusual or atypical element of the D&D cosmology.

Indeed.

 

[dave2008]

That passage is one of many reasons why I love that book and all the others like it.

What do you like about it?

 

[Micah Sweet]

What do you like about it?

I really appreciate the technical explanation of the lore, and the level of detail. I like the fact that there was a system to explain a unique event...in fact, I'm a really big fan of world detail and explanations in general. I like to know why and how things happen.

Specifically, I read and very much enjoyed the Avatar trilogy when it was first released (it's pretty much the only FR novel series I liked), and I'm very fond of analysis of stories I enjoy, particularly mythologies and histories, real or otherwise. The god books were right up my alley in that department.

 

[CreamCloud0]

i think there's interesting ideas looking at the intentional mismatch between a god's allignment and their domain, an evil god who's set themselves up as the god of healing and medicine, due to the amount of assured worship they'll get out of the sick and the injured and those close to them, and the leverage that gives them over their followers, 'oh you want me to cure that plague ravaging your city? sure just promise to set me up with a brand new temple else it might just find it's way back...' or a lawful good god who takes the domain of war and battle to try ensure that there is honour on the battlefield and fair play

 

[Vaalingrade]

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.