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Message: <blockquote data-quote="paradox42" data-source="post: 3225099" data-attributes="member: 29746">Thank you. I actually arrived at the idea of carefully-reasoned creeds for Evil deities when I was having trouble coming up with another Evil deity to fill out my homebrew's Divine hierarchy; I wanted the number of deities in each of the three factions Good, Neutral, and Evil to be the same- like Dragonlance/Krynn. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f631.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":o" title="Eek!    :o"  data-smilie="9"data-shortname=":o" /> Derivative, yes, but I stuck with it and came up with some very interesting ideas later as a result of it- but that's another topic.The relevant point here is that, because I decided to base the new Evil deity on some archetype of evil in the real world, I needed a known figure to do it. And I picked Hitler- the new deity was to be treated sort of as a divine Nazi. That deity, Patrin, has a fairly simple creed- "Our race is the Chosen People, destined to rule by Divine Right!" Of course, the fact that Patrin himself belongs to no particular race, and in fact spreads this creed among many races, is always conveniently glossed over or ignored by his higher-ranking priests- but at the core, the beliefs are very much based on Nazi ideals.And that, in turn, got me thinking- I knew from personal reading that the Nazi party as it existed in 1930s Germany had many of the trappings of a religion. In fact, I've discovered since that many of these trappings were deliberately inserted into the belief structure of the Party to encourage unity and fanaticism, as well as for certain occult and mystical reasons which I won't go into here, but we can see that Nazi-ism essentially "works" as a religion by the fact that its adherents were so powerfully devoted to it. In fact, in the modern world, the existence of groups like the World Church of the Creator demonstrate that it is in fact a religion of sorts. [To the mods- if this steps over the invisible line, I apologize and will edit the post as necessary.] Relating this back to Evil religions, I thought: if this works for one evil deity, why couldn't it work for others?So, I sat down and started to think very seriously about what these evil cults really believed in to make them behave as they did. And what would the deities with the portfolios as I had defined them give to their worshippers, to make them give devotion to the deities instead of just lip service and fear? Why would people willingly serve these deities, even to the point of dying in their name?Nexus was a creed I was pleased with, but the one that really convinced me the idea was sound and the experiment would work in practice was the creed I came up with for Tinnabula- the goddess of Insanity, Discord, and Noise. The goddess is herself, insane, and in fact two of the demigods associated with her church (Indifference and Paranoia) are actually seperate personalities of hers that became powerful enough to acquire divine power of their own. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /> Tinnabula's creed is best summed up as follows: The cosmos would be a terribly boring and dreary place if everything went according to some plan all the time. There would be no Surprises, and Surprises are what fun and enjoyment are all about! Well, Goddess knows how to make surprises- nobody can do it like she can. Noises are surprises, that's what makes them noise instead of- for instance- music. And every organization and group needs to have itself shaken and stirred now and again with some internal conflict, to help make new Surprises for everybody. And what people think of as a "sane" mind really just means a mind where all the parts are working harmoniously together, the same way all the time. Well where's the fun in that? Join us and let us teach you the meaning and value of Surprises!I was proud of myself for that one. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f60e.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":cool:" title="Cool    :cool:"  data-smilie="6"data-shortname=":cool:" /> And after I came up with it, I knew the same approach could work for any deity if I just thought long enough about the portfolios and found a way to connect them.</blockquote>

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