Evil Disguised as Good...

[Scribble]

Ok, so in my homebrew which I've been steadily working on for around a year or so, I have ONE God...

Alem Hei “He Above”
Greater Deity
Domains: Law, Good, Protection, Strength

LG deity...

Now... my issue is that I kind of want a large part of the "higher ranked" members of the clergy to be corrupt, and blinded by power, in a way... Possibly evil...

But how to accomplish this in a world filled with magic that can detect "alignment" and priests who recieve spells directly from the gods themselves, and can at certain levels even speak with the deity directly?!?!

I could possibly say the higher ups have lost their faith, possibly moving on to the "source" of evil (the devils and demons...) and the lower priests just haven't realized it? But... in a world where angels can manifest physically? Just seems kind of silly...

I'm running into the idea that I will have to dramatically alter the way alignment works or how priests interact with their deity in my world...

 

[Deadguy]

If you have access to the Eberron Campaign Sourcebook then a lot of what you need to do to get this effect is described. I would also point you to an early Dragonshard article here which also looks into this question.

On the specific question of alignment, powerful clerics can be considered to bear the strong aura of their patron rather than their own alignment. All it takes is for Faith to matter more than the actions of the deity, and corruption can grow where normally in D&D this course fails.

 

[Turanil]

IMCS religion works like this:

-- There is a monotheistic religion, loosely based on the Christian faith. It is a LG religion, but with an important point: mortals are given freedom of choice, and choosing to believe in God is an act of faith that must be decided by the mortal on its own. If the mortal would encounter an angel or God's avatar, s/he would be so much awed and scared that there wouldn't be any choice for her/him to worship God - the Heavens. Things work that a mortal must voluntarily choose the Heavens - God, with blind faith; it's a personnal decision. As such, God (and angels) don't intervene to teach mortals lessons and tell them which path to follow. The only exception to this is the gaining of divine spells.

-- As a result, despite the Holy church is LG, some of its priests aren't. They have made the wrong choice. As such, they don't get spells anymore (a clue to their failing of faith!), but then, angels don't come to them for a lecture, and God doesn't expel them from the Church. In fact note that a mystic worthy of God / Heavens, would gain divine spells whether he belongs to the church or not. It's the prophet (a mortal) who created the Holy church on his own choice, not God (who never tells what he thinks about it).

-- Some priests loose faith, behave wrong, hence don't get divine spells anymore. But if they escape attention from their brethren, since God doesn't intervene (freedom of choice), they can remain in the Church. Now, some of them have fallen to the temptation of the Devil. So now these unfaithful priests outwardly pretend to profess in the name of God while working for and getting spells from the Devil! Only inquisitors will root these unfaithful priests out, not God, who only ceases to give them divine spells.

 

[Scribble]

If you have access to the Eberron Campaign Sourcebook then a lot of what you need to do to get this effect is described. I would also point you to an early Dragonshard article here which also looks into this question.

On the specific question of alignment, powerful clerics can be considered to bear the strong aura of their patron rather than their own alignment. All it takes is for Faith to matter more than the actions of the deity, and corruption can grow where normally in D&D this course fails.

Awesome... Thank you for the link. I had no idea Ebberon treats it's god in such a manner. Good stuff!

 

[Sepulchrave II]

I had a similar situation in my campaign, which formed the basis of a main arc.

Bear in mind that priests can be within one alignment step of their deity. I think that LN offers sufficient flexibility as far as blindness to power goes, especially if a group of clerics are interpreting the religion in a particularly dogmatic way. It is well within the bounds of the LN alignment to exhibit what we would consider cruel acts (inquisitions, persecutions etc.) without having to resort to Evil with a capital 'E.' Corruption can be as simple as powerful clerics of a certain persuasion favoring those who share the same interpretation of dogma.

A divine spellcaster of high rank who actually becomes Evil also has a number of tools to prevent discovery (nondetection, mind blank etc.), assuming that he/she has a new demonic or diabolic sponsor. Obviously, the deity would know this, but then deities are known for withholding information for their own inscrutable ends (a test of faith? impending revelation?). Deities should take a much bigger view of things in general - if their actions are too predictable, they lose their mystique.

Faith is more fun than fact, after all. It leaves the players guessing.

 

[Scribble]

I kind of like the idea of non direct intervention...

IE kind of like what I'm reading in this ebberron article... Priests pray, get spells, commune with "something..." that they believe to be their god...

Perhaps use of the Uhr priest (I think thats the spelling) from BOVD, would facilitate this even more...

 

[KJW]

Unforeseen results, at least unforeseen by mortals.

A deity may allow corruption in his faith, knowing that this corruption will lead to some incident that will produce needed reforms for the future of the faith. IMC the successful faiths are the ones in which their mortal followers have more authority and independence, the less successful faiths are the ones in which the deities micromanage. Your LG deity may allow this corruption to make those who are true by forcing them to standup to the corrupt leadership.

Now this does not mean the corrupt clerics still have divine powers from their 'god,' but that doesn't mean they will step down. Furthermore, the dark powers could be posing as angelic beings and giving them 'alternative' powers. The LG god is obviously taking a chance, but he is a greater deity he knows this will most likely all turn out well in the end.

The gods work in mysterious ways, only because they can see how things will turn out and mortals can't. This is a tool you can use for deities to do all sorts of things that make no sense due to their alignments. It really isn't the ends justifying the means, as the fact that due to greater sense of things the future, present, and past blur together.

Anyway just a thought.

 

[pawsplay]

Although some game worlds specify otherwise, the core books imply that the majority of clergy are actually Experts, not Clerics. Now, imagine some spoony adventurer claiming the High Priest is actually Evil. What are most people going to believe?

Within the game, you have options. Undectable alignment has a 24 hour duration, and rings of mind shielding are cheap. So avoiding paladins is not too hard. Actually appearing to be Good is another matter.

Keep in mind, also, that clerics are not bound in the same way as paladins; a cleric of a LG diety could actually be fairly corrupt, provided his alignment didn't shift beyond NG or LN in the long run. Even LG characters are flawed and human, they are simply committed to an ideal.

If I wanted to run a campaign in which the clergy was primarily low level clerics (complete with miraculous spell casting and armor proficiency), I might be inclined to make the higher ups a kind of conspiracy, and give them a spell that gives them a false aura of goodness (this should be fairly straightforward; Nystul's aura can already make an unholy human bane longsword detect as a holy avenger).

 

[Dagger of Lath]

But how to accomplish this in a world filled with magic that can detect "alignment" and priests who recieve spells directly from the gods themselves, and can at certain levels even speak with the deity directly?!?!

God instructs his evil counterpart to grant spells to clerics who fall, so as to truly test them. He also sometimes leads clerics astray, again to truly test them.

 

[Bayushi Seikuro]

There was an interesting point in one of the first edition Legend of the Five Rings books about why this ronin, who wrote the book, became a ronin.

About one is never supposed to check their masters for Taint. And once it's not found, they're not supposed to check again. Remember, the world there is based on a lot of Oriental, specifically Japanese, honor and loyalty.

How do I see such a priesthood working? The low level guys shouldn't generally question their superiors. I mean NPCs. And how would a third-level guy know what power his superior is getting and from where? Can he still heal the sick? Yes. Can he still bless people? Yes.

Don't overlook perspective. Someone might not question their wounds not being healed, in some way feeling it's THEIR sin that prevented it, not the priest's.

And I agree. Move the religion move towards lawful neutral; it adds new dimensions without bringing in Evil. Maybe they want to have more structure; structure being good for bringing civility everywhere, acting as a stabilizing force in the world, and therefore gaining more temporal power to act for their god. They won't see the harm they do, especially when they realize the light and protection that they bring to the world.

Just my semirandom two cents.