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Evil Deities & Their Followers
- Thread starter Sol.Dragonheart
- Start date
VirgilCaine
First Post
gizmo33 said:
Yeah, the only church you could get operating even semi-openly is Hextor. And that's a maybe. Everyone, say hello to the cell system.
Sol.Dragonheart
First Post
I could accept that religious followers of evil deities would operate in cells when absolutely necessary, however, I sincerely doubt that this would be a desired methodology of operation as it reduces the strength and ability of the church to fulfill its primary purpose.
That is, a churches primary functions in furthering its deities goals, attracting new worshippers, and providing a place of refuge and gathering for the faithful on a regular basis. A cell system would only be ably to feasibly and effeciently perform the first of those functions, and have a much more difficult time performing the other two.
I also have to wonder how many cultures and governments would outright ban the worship and call for the execution of followers of the evil deities. It would seem that a primary goal of any religious organization, regardless of alignment, woudl be to secure political and economic ties to the region or governemnt, in order to operate with at litttle restrictions as possible.
I would think, that should a charismatic, powerful leader of Shar or Cyric would be able to integrate themselves into most societies in the Realms, with very few exceptions. If they provide valuable clerical services for the community, aid in the defense of the region, and so forth, why should they honestly be denied?
It simply seems to me that most would not be intrinsically opposed towards letting such a religious force operate in their region, particularly if it had an overall beneficial impact upon the stability of the area. There are a few exceptions, of course, but overall I would expect that the evil faiths would be no more rsetricted or eliminated than the good faiths, varying by region, of course.
Perhaps I'm wrong here, but, generally speaking, why would there be such a strong and immediate opposition to churches of deities like Cyric, Beshaba, Shar, and so forth, having open churches and places of worship in most regions?
That is, a churches primary functions in furthering its deities goals, attracting new worshippers, and providing a place of refuge and gathering for the faithful on a regular basis. A cell system would only be ably to feasibly and effeciently perform the first of those functions, and have a much more difficult time performing the other two.
I also have to wonder how many cultures and governments would outright ban the worship and call for the execution of followers of the evil deities. It would seem that a primary goal of any religious organization, regardless of alignment, woudl be to secure political and economic ties to the region or governemnt, in order to operate with at litttle restrictions as possible.
I would think, that should a charismatic, powerful leader of Shar or Cyric would be able to integrate themselves into most societies in the Realms, with very few exceptions. If they provide valuable clerical services for the community, aid in the defense of the region, and so forth, why should they honestly be denied?
It simply seems to me that most would not be intrinsically opposed towards letting such a religious force operate in their region, particularly if it had an overall beneficial impact upon the stability of the area. There are a few exceptions, of course, but overall I would expect that the evil faiths would be no more rsetricted or eliminated than the good faiths, varying by region, of course.
Perhaps I'm wrong here, but, generally speaking, why would there be such a strong and immediate opposition to churches of deities like Cyric, Beshaba, Shar, and so forth, having open churches and places of worship in most regions?
Voadam
Legend
I think many of the evil gods have a tough time in the Realms now.
It used to be that Gods just were, they had power of varying levels but they were not dependent on followers. Shar was a greater primordial goddess of pre-world darkness, very cthonic and uberpowerful.
Many gods of ill things were offered sacrifices and whatnot to appease them, Umberlee when you went sailing, Talona to fend off diseases and plagues, Talos for the storms, Auril for blizzards, etc.
After the Time of Troubles Ao tied their power to their mortal followers.
This will cause problems for those without dedicated regular followers, which means a lot of the evil ones who were appeased by many but not followed by high numbers.
These gods will coast on their power for millenia but eventually degrade into lesser demipowers if they do not develop dedicated followings to increase/maintain their power. Malar may keep killing other deities to steal divine power and hold onto it that way as well.
Shar is still uberpowerful, but will have to gain many followers to avoid her power slipping into entropy itself.
It used to be that Gods just were, they had power of varying levels but they were not dependent on followers. Shar was a greater primordial goddess of pre-world darkness, very cthonic and uberpowerful.
Many gods of ill things were offered sacrifices and whatnot to appease them, Umberlee when you went sailing, Talona to fend off diseases and plagues, Talos for the storms, Auril for blizzards, etc.
After the Time of Troubles Ao tied their power to their mortal followers.
This will cause problems for those without dedicated regular followers, which means a lot of the evil ones who were appeased by many but not followed by high numbers.
These gods will coast on their power for millenia but eventually degrade into lesser demipowers if they do not develop dedicated followings to increase/maintain their power. Malar may keep killing other deities to steal divine power and hold onto it that way as well.
Shar is still uberpowerful, but will have to gain many followers to avoid her power slipping into entropy itself.
Sol.Dragonheart said:
Because they are evil!
The word "evil" means exactly that. In fact the definition of evil given in the PHB matches, as closely as possible, the definition of the word evil in history. And "evil" is used to designate those things that society completely abhors. A church that is tolerated by society almost cannot be evil by definition - even if it's become an ingrained DnD-ism to see evil as some sort trait more akin to "goth" than what it really means.It's only the in most liberal and modern of societies, which are culturally pretty dissimilar to pseudo-medieval fantasy world societies that people even tolerate what folks would consider evil, and that has more to do with fuzzy definitions, inability to enforce, lack of census.
AFAICT, in real life, evil is used as a code word for "it's ok to kill these guys." Of course individual DMs have complete control over every NPC in their world, so that socieities can tolerate evil just because the DM says that they do. However, I don't think there's really any basis for that outside of it being the way you want to do things.
Sol.Dragonheart
First Post
Yet we just went through the multiple justifications and reasoning behind people joining and following an evil deity. If an evil church or religious group poses no immediate or obvious danger to the region or its government, and, as mentioned, actively aids and helps the region, why would people be opposed to having them around?
Deities like Talona are obvious exceptions, although I could see certain governments allowing even them to function in the area if guarantees were met and honored. However, in general, why would deities like Beshaba, Umberlee, Cyric, or Shar be eliminated from the larger cities and civilizations of the Realms?
Having Clerics of power around would further stabilize just about any region, as well as provide invaluable services to the established government and the local populace. The reason I must ponder this is, as I said, I have to consider how religious faiths would integrate themselves into society, and by offering their services and loyalty to the region, they could secure a solid, stable, secure base to which to spread their faith.
So, logically, they would take this action. The question then becomes, if said religions are willing to do so, what would be stopping them? Really, I can't see why people or leaders would flat out refuse this offer and opportunity unless they were already beholden to other faiths that diametrically oppose those seeking entry.
On another note, I would concur with what Kae'Yoss said. If you think about it, this resolves a number of the issues one may have with the power scheme listed in the FR books. It mentions in the Cyric entry in the FR campaign setting book, that his followers involve themselves in intrigues that lead to strife and murder, rather than war, as if they did the latter, the world would fall under the sway of Tempus.
This indicates that actions and events taken by people or organizations in the world directly influence the power and strength of the deities who have dominion over those areas of life. This would mean that, for example, every time someone tells a lie, Cyrics power is increased, or every time someone hides a secret, Shars influence is increased, and so on, and so forth with all the varying deities and their realms of dominion.
That would explain why dieties like Shar and Cyric who may not have as abundant a following as say, Lathander or Chauntea, still have extremely high levels of power and influence in the world, as people consistently and routinely engage in activities that further their power across the Realms, without ever actually directly worshipping them.
Deities like Talona are obvious exceptions, although I could see certain governments allowing even them to function in the area if guarantees were met and honored. However, in general, why would deities like Beshaba, Umberlee, Cyric, or Shar be eliminated from the larger cities and civilizations of the Realms?
Having Clerics of power around would further stabilize just about any region, as well as provide invaluable services to the established government and the local populace. The reason I must ponder this is, as I said, I have to consider how religious faiths would integrate themselves into society, and by offering their services and loyalty to the region, they could secure a solid, stable, secure base to which to spread their faith.
So, logically, they would take this action. The question then becomes, if said religions are willing to do so, what would be stopping them? Really, I can't see why people or leaders would flat out refuse this offer and opportunity unless they were already beholden to other faiths that diametrically oppose those seeking entry.
On another note, I would concur with what Kae'Yoss said. If you think about it, this resolves a number of the issues one may have with the power scheme listed in the FR books. It mentions in the Cyric entry in the FR campaign setting book, that his followers involve themselves in intrigues that lead to strife and murder, rather than war, as if they did the latter, the world would fall under the sway of Tempus.
This indicates that actions and events taken by people or organizations in the world directly influence the power and strength of the deities who have dominion over those areas of life. This would mean that, for example, every time someone tells a lie, Cyrics power is increased, or every time someone hides a secret, Shars influence is increased, and so on, and so forth with all the varying deities and their realms of dominion.
That would explain why dieties like Shar and Cyric who may not have as abundant a following as say, Lathander or Chauntea, still have extremely high levels of power and influence in the world, as people consistently and routinely engage in activities that further their power across the Realms, without ever actually directly worshipping them.
In fact, this was always the case: 'The "gods" of the Realms . . . grow or diminish in personal power in relation to the number of mortal worshippers they possess.' (1987 Cyclopedia of the Realms p. 10). So that 'change' was as poorly conceived as most aspects of the Avatar Crisis.Voadam said:
Before and after the Time of Troubles, worship is one determinant of godly 'size', but not the only one. Exactly how this works is unknown to mortals, and happily has been kept mysterious in the sources. Just as happily, there's no evidence after 17 years of any phenomena like gods subsiding without proportionate worship.
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