Good People Worshipping Evil?

[Al]

I don't see why not. Instead, the Goddess of Trickery and Deception in my campaign frequently goes under various guises to boost her worship through deceit: it's a double-whammy since not only does she gain direct worship, but in practising the act of deceit her power increases ipso facto (yep, it's a slightly weird system).

Clerics have access to Undetectable Alignment, have Diplomacy and, with the Trickery domain, Bluff. A high level cleric with the Trickery domain could easily insidiously worm his way into a community, especially using gradualism and populism. For example, the old priest of the community could be "found" animating the dead...how convenient . Later on, the church of the good (evil) god's power could be waning and need monetary donations to wage war against a (fictional) enemy. So long as the priest can be keep the people ignorant, scared, affectionate or a combination of the three, he can control their moods and actions with relative ease.

 

[DMH]

And stay good? I don't think that could happen. Midnight had good monks and clerics that worshipped the evil god , but they were turned after a while.

The fiend of corruption PrC could change a cleric's allegence to another god, but the change from good to evil will happen sooner or latter.

 

[shilsen]

By the RAW, not really possible. In a campaign which uses variant rules about what worship means and how the relationship between deities and their followers works (Eberron, for example), sure.

 

[Rel]

I don't see why not. Instead, the Goddess of Trickery and Deception in my campaign frequently goes under various guises to boost her worship through deceit: it's a double-whammy since not only does she gain direct worship, but in practising the act of deceit her power increases ipso facto (yep, it's a slightly weird system).

This is kind of my answer too. The way divine magic works in my world is that the gods get most of their power from the rituals and sacrifices that their worshipers do. A major plot point was that a few hundred years ago, Bane (the god of deceit and corruption) managed to figure out a way to siphon off some of the power from other religions by subtle corruption of their rituals.

Eventually he got figured out and the other gods were less than pleased. And a lot of false priests and such went under the sword of the Inquisition for their part in the ruse. As a result, only the more militant religions (St. Cuthbert and Pelor) survived with much influence because it was their rituals that were harder to subvert.

 

[dren]

In my campaign, most gods have various cults and sects with varying divergent beliefs. There are many occasions, when good aligned clerics worship evil gods, as it is akin to appeasment than devotion. In this pagan environment, you pray or make offerings to the god who most affect your needs...so you pray to the goddess of sickness if someone in the family is ill.

 

[Patlin]

C.S. Lewis in the Narnia chronicles had Aslan (his Christ figure) say something along the lines of "He who claims to worships me but who does so with a false heart and an evil mind actually worships evil, He who claims to worship [the evil archetype] but who does so with a pure heart and good intentions actually worships me."

If you bow down before an altar of a Trickery God because you think it's the altar of a Good God, even if no such specific good god exists, somewhere some Good god hears the prayer. IMO.

 

[The Amazing Dingo]

I'm loving the feedback here, especially the input concerning Eberron (have yet to really dig into the book and the mechanics) and the idea put forth by Rel.

My biggest concern was that the power being given by the evil god would be tainted with utter evil. Would it be possible for the evil god to given holy powers, spells, and energies to his priests and those powers not be detected as evil (if not the person, then at least the spells and energy)?

In my campaign, to get around this, the BBEG (who is basically an outsider vying for god-hood but trapped on the Material Plane in a prison of ice) arranged for the destruction of a city about one hundred years ago. He also arranged to have all of the city's souls trapped in larvae at the same time. He's been using this larvae to power those clerics and paladins who have begun to worship him, believing it to be the LG god they are worshipping.

The point: to weaken the church when he decides to make his final play for freedom from his prison.

Anyway, that will be my way around that problem in terms of the powers given to those clerics as detecting as evil.

 

[Rel]

In my campaign, to get around this, the BBEG (who is basically an outsider vying for god-hood but trapped on the Material Plane in a prison of ice) arranged for the destruction of a city about one hundred years ago. He also arranged to have all of the city's souls trapped in larvae at the same time. He's been using this larvae to power those clerics and paladins who have begun to worship him, believing it to be the LG god they are worshipping.

The point: to weaken the church when he decides to make his final play for freedom from his prison.

Anyway, that will be my way around that problem in terms of the powers given to those clerics as detecting as evil.

I don't really see a problem at all. I'd just say that the BBEG grants powers that act in the manner the PC's would expect. If they try to Detect Evil or somesuch, then it is the BBEG's version of Detect Evil they're using and it gives a result that is approved of by the BBEG.

It sounds like you foresee a point where the BBEG will make his final play for power and this will put those who worship him in a dilemma. They will have to choose whether to keep their powers and openly serve Evil or lose the powers to stick to their personal ideals.

What I'd probably do would be have the PC's willing to recant their worship approached by the avatar of a truly Good deity who offers them similar powers to those they've lost in exchange for attonement in the form of waging all out war against the Deceiver BBEG.

Or something like that.

 

[Tessarael]

Common folks and priests may "worship" the evil god to appease him, to avoid his wrath. For example, sacrifices to Poseidon before sailing to avoid being struck by storms at sea.

 

[The Amazing Dingo]

I don't really see a problem at all. I'd just say that the BBEG grants powers that act in the manner the PC's would expect. If they try to Detect Evil or somesuch, then it is the BBEG's version of Detect Evil they're using and it gives a result that is approved of by the BBEG.

It sounds like you foresee a point where the BBEG will make his final play for power and this will put those who worship him in a dilemma. They will have to choose whether to keep their powers and openly serve Evil or lose the powers to stick to their personal ideals.

What I'd probably do would be have the PC's willing to recant their worship approached by the avatar of a truly Good deity who offers them similar powers to those they've lost in exchange for attonement in the form of waging all out war against the Deceiver BBEG.

Or something like that.

I think I'm still remembering and thinking too much of Sepulchrave's Story Hour with this line of thought. What I'm aiming for is a rift in the church - the sect which has been accidentally been worshipping this evil entity is suddenly brought to light. Of course, this brings about a giant amount of second questioning and guessing themselves.

That is when the plans begin to really unfold.

At this point, the Church is suddenly uncertain what to do (one of the problems of a LG church is that rootedness in tradition...and when this has never happened before, things begin to break). The PC is a paladin of the church. What she does is up to her, but this is the situation I'm aiming with.

Concerning the Detect Evil example, I'm thinking about when a true worshipper of the LG god Detect's Evil. I'm not saying they would aim it at the mistaken follower, but sooner or later one would get caught in such an effect.

And Rel, you have partially read my mind. Of course, all of this depends on what the PC does, but I'm thinking of having the followers approached by a representative of another good God, however this one would be NG or CG rather then LG since those followers, despite intentions, acted wrongly in their worship. This nice dilemna forces people who are generally LG to debate about turning to another god of a differing alignment (vastly different if that new god is CG).

Of course, perhaps I'll just yionk Sepulchrave's whole idea about paradox and a radical church reform from the *very* top of the religion down.