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Message: <blockquote data-quote="DEFCON 1" data-source="post: 8020843" data-attributes="member: 7006">So as I've been doing a little bit of research and review in preparation to hopefully run a Theros game soon... the one thing I found that I liked about learning about the Theros gods is that the information has been all about their personalities without any moral judgments made about who they are (which usually comes out in D&D by having alignments assigned to all of them.)  The stuff I've read about the deities have all come from the articles for the CCG and it has been compelling to see them not through the "alignment" lens.The things I've really enjoyed have been that all 15 gods (or almost all-- Mogis I need to look into a little more) have portfolios that cover both good things and bad things.  Even someone like Pharika, the God of Affliction... she is associated with grief, old age, poisons, assassins, the mother of gorgons (medusai)... but also medicine, antidotes, patron of doctors and such.   That I think is cool.  ALL parts of society would have reason to revere her, as opposed to just trying placate her so she doesn't kill them (the trope that many "evil gods" seem to get burdened with.)  It seems like plenty of people could and do worship Pharika openly without being looked at askance by the rest of society.This is the kind of thing that I like.  You can have gods that are jerks-- from all accounts it seems like Heliod is a right a-hole despite being like the head of the pantheon and the quintessential White mana deity-- but the things they watch and have domain over inspire worship from all of society, good and bad.  This makes much more sense to me, as I think gods should tend to try and reach as many people as possible.But as I looked through everything, the only one that I questioned on this part was Mogis as I said above... because it seems like he has domain over wrath, pain, violence, and bloodlust (as well as patron of the minotaur.)  Which means-- first-- we again get the same tired trope of the "monster" peoples defaulting to an "evil" patron deity (which has been done to death and the points we've been having countless threads over in the last week or so. )  And second... Mogis has a portfolio that does not appear to warrant reverence by most of society, merely appeasement.  "I don't want to be hurt, so I pray to Mogis not to hurt me."  Or "I don't want the violence on my doorstep, so let me make an offering to Mogis."  Whereas (just based on the stuff I've read) the peoples who do revere Mogis are the ones who are looking to rain fury and destruction upon their enemies and which would inspire the idea of the character being assigned the "evil" attribution.Now I'm hoping I've just missed some other parts of Mogis' portfolio that have less negative connotations... OR that the violence of war is so prominent in Therosian life that driving out your enemies before you is actually seen as a very positive thing.  And I'm hoping that when I get the actual book it will go into much greater detail about Mogis and give us information about why he should not be thought of as just an "evil god" about mindless fury but instead have some actual weight and variety to him.  Hopefully they haven't just given his twin brother Iroas all the "good" stuff and he got saddled with just the bad.  Because that just seems too easy and not very compelling.  But if that is what happened... I'll want to to in and rework the portfolio to give Mogis some neutral or positive aspects to his domain over battle and war that would warrant reverence from even so-called "good" and "neutral" members of society.</blockquote>

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