Well, do think about it. It's going to have a major impact on how rational and reasonable you can portray a doctrine of free sexual expression.
I never said I didn't think about it, either; I was kind of relying on the explanation of knowledge in the game's universe (and how being a powerful wizard, which most gods actually are, requires a lot of scientific knowledge) to imply that those things were, in some way, in place. Then again, I
did also say that these types of knowledge are not something commonplace, especially in Parodesh due to the fact that a knowledgeable person doesn't need the deities' help, and thus is a potential threat to the status quo. However, the deities would probably want to at least advise their followers (or even the general public, in the case of a benevolent deity) along the lines of their knowledge, or even simply give the knowledge to high-ranking followers, if it was seen as beneficial to the group/deity.
Let's examine DiBella herself, particularly in her iconic representation as a nude human female, her arms bent sharply at the elbows, reclining backwards, with her hands above her head, and flowers replacing her hands. Well, the first thing that ought to be obvious about this portrait is that this is not the deity of male-female equality. A person whose hands are replaced by flowers is not someone who can do any rough or hard work with her hands. Indeed, I think that it is reasonable to suggest that if you have flowers in place of hands, you can't really do any work at all. You can't hit. You can't grasp. You can't manipulate anything by strength. You are helpless and dependent on others to protect, provide and care for you. Flowers are literal sexual organs. The only thing you are presenting the female form as good for is sex. Moreover, the body posture of back bent backwards, arms bent at the elbows, and hands placed above ones head is the female rape submission posture. So what power is in this deity? Eros. DiBella has the power to inspire eros and desire. The posture that her idols represent is the ideology that a rape victim has power over her rapist, because her eros took control over her attacker and made him act. It is an ideology of sexual power; of sexuality as a tool of control and manipulation.
These implications you are mentioning are all things that I was either unaware of, or didn't think about in terms of connecting the dots...
But I think it clear that if you intend to express the deity in a way that is more unequivacably 'good' as most modern players would understand it, you're going to need to embody her in some form other than one of submission with hands replaced by sexual organs. For example, you asserted earlier that as you conceive her she abhors rape, and she disapproves of betrayal. I suggest you either give up on portraying her as unquivacbly 'good', or else you are going to have to make some sort of short list of things she considers 'sins' and which are never acceptable regardless of your personal choices. If that list is to convey 'goodnesss' in both the D&D sense and in the common sense understanding of goodness in modern Western civilization, it's going to have to be guidelines that ensure eros is used in a way that healthy and improves wellbeing for all involved.
Well, she does have a very short list of sins related to her domain, which, as it exists so far, I have already provided. As far as morality unrelated to the domains of one's preferred deity, of course, followers would probably follow the laws of the rest of society. Since Parodesh is governed, at least at the highest level, directly by the deities, the equivalent of "secular" laws are actually the laws that the deities agreed to uphold, or at least, to not interfere with, in order to maintain society. That said, there are certain granted circumstances (often, though not always, related to a location set aside for this very purpose) in which the laws of an individual deity are upheld instead of society's laws, should they contradict.
Also, when I say "good," I'm not talking strictly in the sense of DnD morality, especially since my system will have an alternative system of various spectra related to values, and even
that won't have any mechanical bearing (it'll just be there as a suggestion to help people develop their characters). The way in which Im-Tinar (or, at least, her position as a deity) is "good" translates into DnD as being more along the lines of "neutral" in DnD terms, even if she takes a lot more care to avoid "evil" than most "neutral" characters. However, given the different systems, this is a
very rough translation that is guaranteed to have inaccuracies.
That seems reasonable given the general ethos involved here. However, if you are to consider Im-Tinar good, it should be clear that some requests - those that don't improve the health and well-being of those being transformed - would be denied. If on the other hand, Im-Tinar is a goddess of Eros who employs slaves as sacred prostitutes in her temples and doesn't consider that 'wrong', then modifying someone to be a more sexual object either against their will or against their interests doesn't necessarily offend her in the slightest. Likewise, if someone comes in and wants to be multilated so that they can be better degraded or otherwise out of feelings of low self-worth, that's fine as well. Indeed, that might even be considered laudable - the recognitiion that ones entire worth is in inspiring eros and in accepting that as a choice might be considered 'correct'.
I have been trying to think of how she would view "unhealthy" transformation requests... So far, I got nothing, or at least, nothing conclusive.
At some point, complete lack of dogmatism becomes CN - there is no evil, there is no good, there is only self and violition.
Now, honestly, I consider Im-Tinar as CN to be the obvious way to take her, and the way I would take her or something like her as the most interesting edition to my pantheon. The reason for that is that if Im-Tinar is CN, I can have CG, CN, and CE factions and sects, worshipping Im-Tinar without contridiction and that creates a really interesting scenario for the players.
Well, I'm trying to develop the deities in my game as more than just mechanics and plot devices. I'm trying to make them into
(somewhat) believable characters, with their own desires and personalities, and their own reasons for being that way. I mean, it only makes sense that they would be like that, considering that my game's definition of a deity is "an immensely powerful entity that grants some of its power in exchange for service or tribute." In order for that to apply in a world where everything works the way it does for a reason, the deities would have to be characters; not only would they need some sort of will to decide on whether or not to grant their followers their power (and thus, they couldn't just be a concept), but also they'd need an explanation of how they obtained their power in the first place.
Of course, there are various things which would cause a being to be unreasonable (and unambiguously evil) in my game, but those are often due to various aberrant conditions.
...and almost by definition deities are idealizations of the things they represent...
In the traditional sense, yes, but as I said, my game has a different definition of "deity." In fact, the deities of Parodesh have little significance in a "cosmic" sense, although certain deities do have limited "cosmic power" (defined in-game as the power used to both create the universe and influence events in the universe, characterized by the limited ability to control or bypass reality in a way reminiscent of a writer's control over a story, and obtained through becoming enlightened to the true nature of reality). They're not even among the most powerful beings in the world, let alone the universe.
...its quite possible that Im-Tinar believes everything beautiful and has no standards. She could be both the goddess of beauty and of ugly. Her ultimate doctrine might be everything should inspire eros, and its only the weak and unwise and as of yet not transcendent that fail to see this.
This is an interesting idea, though I probably wouldn't phrase it as her being "both the goddess of beauty and of ugly." Maybe she wants her followers to try to see the beauty in all things? A monstrously ugly person might demonstrate beauty by having a good personality, and certainly by merely living a "beautifully tragic" story.
