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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Elder-Basilisk" data-source="post: 2758509" data-attributes="member: 3146">I'm not convinced that the demands of piety and humility before a god would be less simply because the god is less. The rewards and justification would certainly be less. To humbly trust in a fallible god is not likely to end as well as humbly trusting in an infallible and all powerful God. But I don't know that the greek deities were particularly understanding if their servants questioned them. Poseidon, for example, sent serpents to consume the priests that warned the trojans about accepting the Trojan horse. Athena (probably one of the few candidates for lawful good among the ancient deities) turned arachne into a spider for claiming that she could weave as well as Athena (which may or may not have been true--Athena turned her into a spider before the contest finished in some versions of the legend) and got mighty upset at Paris for declaring Hera the winner of the golden apple of discord. They were all very particular about being given their due.The series of Oedipus dramas (Oedipus Rex, Oedipus at Colonus, etc) stressed the importance of accepting and living within the fate that the gods assigned to you rather than hubristically setting ones self against them.So, all told, I think it does make sense for an individual to be less humble toward the gods in a D&D universe than it does in ours. However, I don't think that D&D gods modelled on the gods of the ancient world would very much appreciate that. In fact, I think they might well exhibit less tolerance for doubt, etc. than Christians accept in their paragons. Jehova is slow to anger and quick to forgive. Zeus and Athena are quick to anger and slow to forgive....The whole mortals correcting the gods thing is a very modern trope. If it happened in the ancient myths, you really, really didn't want to be the mortal given that task. I suppose, though, it's what can be expected to happen if you take a Christian archetype like the paladin and plunk it down in the middle of a polytheistic world where the gods don't meet the standards the paladin does. Sooner or later, there is going to be conflict. And, at that point, you're left with the choice: either the paladin is the agent of a fallible god's will and thus loses his powers for doing the right thing or the paladin is responsible to a higher moral calling (though where that calling comes from and what makes it right is an open question in a world where evil is the equal of good) and can defy his god without ceasing to be a paladin.But sooner or later, he'd kick their tail. Or at least that was the way it worked in the Legend Continues. But I don't believe that that kind of humility is required for a paladin or even that it is always really humility. But, that said, it would be an interesting challenge to try and play a paladin that way.</blockquote>

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