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

[Bohandas]

On this I agree with @Paul Farquhar. A setting in which the divine is, per se, good, may still have opposition. LotR gives a fantasy example.

JRRT has no evil gods. It's a monotheistic setting.

Morgoth is a fallen angel. He has no power to create. He can corrupt, lure and dominate. It seems likely - in D&D terms - that he can cast spells, but not ones that create or conjure forth forces or beings. We know, for instance, that Melkor could not himself make the Silmarils. When Sauron makes the ring, he has to power it with his own essence (he can't create new power). The Black Captain can destroy things by speaking words of power and terror - but I don't think he can create.

IIRC I think the silmarillion refers to the Valar as gods on at least one occasion

 

[Aldarc]

Yes, the Valar are angels in a monotheistic universe with the serial numbers filed off, but it’s also polytheism sanitized by a monotheist.

 

[Chaosmancer]

Hey, by demon lord of dinosaurs do you mean Azuvidexus? I like that guy!

As for other demon lords, I assume the Abyss doesn't care if there are multiple demon lords of poison running around (I don't think Chaos cares about redundancy), but those demon lords are probably competing amongst each other to be the only one.

That was the name, cool name. I stole it for a completely different type of enemy.

And yeah, the Abyss likely doesn't care, but my players sure would.

"You face the minions of the Lord of Poison."
"You mean [A]?"
"No, the other one"
"You mean {B}?"
"No, the other other one"
"You mean... [C]?"
"No."
"Yeah, I don't think we've heard of this guy before. What is his name again?"

 

[Enevhar Aldarion]

Yes, the Valar are angels in a monotheistic universe with the serial numbers filed off, but it’s also polytheism sanitized by a monotheist.

That may be clarified in further writings of Tolkien, but when I was a young teenager in the early 80's with no internet to look things up, and reading The Hobbit and LotR for the first time, I interpreted it to be there was the one top god, who created a group of lesser gods, the Valar, and another lower group similar to demigods/angels, the Maiar. Even if that is not the "official" definition of them, that is how I have always viewed them.

 

[Bedrockgames]

Seems everything interesting is getting stripped out of games here

 

[DEFCON 1]

Seems everything interesting is getting stripped out of games here

Depends on whether you find redundancy interesting.

 

[Bedrockgames]

Depends on whether you find redundancy interesting.

Because redundancy would be the only reason to find evil gods interesting ?

 

[DEFCON 1]

Because redundancy would be the only reason to find evil gods interesting ?

If the two pairs of shoes fit...

 

[prabe]

Because redundancy would be the only reason to find evil gods interesting ?

Maybe the other way around: If there's going to be redundancy, it had better be interesting. If we are, for the sake of discussion, going to have both archfiends and evil gawds, they should both be interesting--ideally, in different ways.

 

[Bedrockgames]

Maybe the other way around: If there's going to be redundancy, it had better be interesting. If we are, for the sake of discussion, going to have both archfiends and evil gawds, they should both be interesting--ideally, in different ways.

Some cosmologies are clean, some have overlap. A messy cosmology with overlap can leave a lot of room for interesting edge cases and variations. It is about what you want in a game. I am fine with clean cosmologies (I've made plenty of my own). But I think the broader appeal a game has, like say D&D) the more you are going to want some overlap, some messiness, so a lot of different flavors can be found.

The beauty of this of course, if you don't have to remove anything. Everyone is free to make their own cosmology in their own campaign, to make their own setting and publish it. I think that is a better approach that saying evil gods should go because their roles is maybe similar to other entities in the setting.