Pathfinder 1E Making the gods of evil and the fiend lords the same thing?

[VelvetViolet]

The gods of evil have always bothered me. The gods of good and neutrality are served by their angels and so on, but the gods of evil must bargain with fiends and have no dedicated workforce. This leads to the strange situation of demon lords having bigger armies than actual evil gods.

Why shouldn't Angels have evil counterparts that serve the gods of evil like in 4e? Better yet, why not cut out the middleman and make the fiend lords and the gods of evil one and the same?

I liked the Scarred Lands pantheon: one gods to represent each of the nine alignments and numerous demigods for everything else. In the case of the three gods of evil, the fiendish races were their de facto servants. That's what I'm looking for.

In fact, why not equate the gods of evil/fiend lords with the titans? The gods claim they created the titans and punished them for rebellion, but perhaps the opposite is true: In the beginning the titans of chaos and evil and their elemental, protean, and qlippoth children held sway. Then the titans and gods of law and good appeared to overthrow and imprison them.

 

[gamerprinter]

I think how heaven and hell is perceived is entirely based on Dante's Inferno - blame Dante it was how he determined the way things are.

If you want to redesign whom serves who in outer planes, that's completely up to you or any other creative world builder. Your suggestions seem likely possibilities for an alternate way of doing it.

 

[Voadam]

In Golarion the gods of evil are a lot like in the Scarred Lands. Asmodeus has the devils like Chardun, Lamashtu is a demon Lord similar to Vangal, Rovagug is a bound Qlippoth similar to a titan. Norgorber is a mysterious ascended mortal(s) and I don't picture him with armies. Zon Kuthon is a good god possessed by an evil thing so again a background that does not lend itself to outsider hordes.

I do like the 4e setup though of angels being servitors for gods of all stripes including evil ones. It is easy to implement in pathfinder, make angels any alignment instead of just any good and alter their alignment powers appropriately with some thought for neutral ones.

 

[Wolf72]

(From the Time of Troubles) I recall that Bane in the FR had command of an army of pit fiends that he threatened (BAH ... lion headed god of paladins and justice ...) TORM with. Torm retorted that he would tear that army apart. Bane countered with while he spends that energy on destroying the fiends, Bane would send his worldly forces to destroy Torm's while Torm was occupied.

I'd give the gods of Evil access to devils/demons/etc of their own.

 

[Ramaster]

Angels have one advantage: they are redundant!

I mean, you have ALWAYS LG outsiders (Archons), ALWAYS CG outsiders (Azatas) and ALWAYS NG outsiders (those animal dudes, forgot their name). Angels can be of any good alignment RAW, and this is even called out on their Bestiary entry. Take that restriction away and make them of the same alignment as the god they serve and you have something similar to 4e angels, and much more useful IMO.

 

[VelvetViolet]

Furthermore, I've always been bothered by the fact that you cannot tell demons and devils apart by appearance. It's like the art department drew 50 fiends and then the editor randomly sorted them into demons or devils. Demons and devils should be as visibly distinguished as a succubus and an erinyes are. The two categories should have clear and unique aesthetics. The type of horns, wings, hooves and so on should be identifying features.

 

[Shemeska]

The gods of evil have always bothered me. The gods of good and neutrality are served by their angels and so on, but the gods of evil must bargain with fiends and have no dedicated workforce. This leads to the strange situation of demon lords having bigger armies than actual evil gods.

Why shouldn't Angels have evil counterparts that serve the gods of evil like in 4e? Better yet, why not cut out the middleman and make the fiend lords and the gods of evil one and the same?

I liked the Scarred Lands pantheon: one gods to represent each of the nine alignments and numerous demigods for everything else. In the case of the three gods of evil, the fiendish races were their de facto servants. That's what I'm looking for.

In fact, why not equate the gods of evil/fiend lords with the titans? The gods claim they created the titans and punished them for rebellion, but perhaps the opposite is true: In the beginning the titans of chaos and evil and their elemental, protean, and qlippoth children held sway. Then the titans and gods of law and good appeared to overthrow and imprison them.

In Golarion, the gods weren't the first creatures to exist. While different creatures have their own creation myths (though all of them might in fact be true), the general scheme of things is that the proteans existed first, with the Abyss and the obyriths appearing next (they and the Abyss were likely coexistant but separated from the Maelstrom up to that point). The proteans and the obyriths immediately came into conflict, and in that period of distraction for the proteans, the other planes and their inhabitants formed out of the primordial chaos. The gods appeared during or after the other planes formed.

Unlike the Great Wheel, the elemental planes in Golarion did not exist (as far as anyone knows) prior to the outer planes (or at least the Maelstrom since it appears to have been eternal and uncreated, at least as the proteans tell things).

None of this of course means that you can't radically change things to suit your own purposes.

 

[Starfox]

I prefer to not really have any evil gods. I like a cosmology where devils and demons directly oppose the gods,where the vast majority of gods are good or neutral and the cosmic battle is between gods/demons/devils. Present evil gods can be downgraded to devils and demons, or made into intra-pantheon enemies like Loke in the Norse pantheon. He is an ally of the giants, giant-kin, and father of many monsters, but he's not a leader of giant armies.

 

[gamerprinter]

I find I prefer deities that aren't good nor evil specifically, rather neutral with concerns for specific concepts and activities. I played a campaign featuring a goddess of winter called the Caillech Bheur (winter hag), who was the deity of ogres and hags of the north, of winter, of both horned animals and predatory animals of the north. At one time she was the ruling deity during the last Ice Age, and seeks to bring back the Ice Age and rule once more. Though she is considered an evil goddess by the northern Celtic human tribes of the region, and anti-human in her activities, she is neutral with an affinity for the older more monstrous humanoids of the north, and not evil per se.

 

[Starfox]

gameprinter, a world like that is tricky for your players to remain good in. If you don't have evil in your world, you will almost automatically have less good. Which I guess is ok by your preferences for neutral gods. It creates a more nuanced, less escapist game. Which is completely legitimate. Personally I prefer my games to have more fairytale elements, and good and evil are definitely part of that.