Slaughter, Everyday
Or to give another example--Anupis the Serpent. By D&D standards, Anupis qualifies as a god. But it is a negative god--a god that is not worshiped, but for whom the other gods are worshiped for defeating. The argument I'm making is that Erythnul's place, and philosophy--he's Chaotic Evil, which is essentially like having a large sign placed on your head that says 'does not work well with others'.
I would argue that a god that you do not worship is not really a god. Anupis was more a monster than a deity....an epic-level monster, capable of destroying the world, but a monster nonetheless.
Gods are worshiped. If you're not worshiped, your not a god. Admittedly, that's drawing on a bit of religios theory, but I feel confident ruling as such. Gods have clerics, adepts, favored souls, druids, rangers, paladins, etc....if you don't have worshipers, you're not a deity, though you may be as powerful, if not more powerful than one. The Fenris Wolf, for instance, or the Midgard Serpent. Heck, even Satan in a certain sense.
And this goes fine until they kill the wealthy merchant, the mayor's young daughter, or the beloved old philanthropist.
Yes, but that would be stupid.
Eythnul may advocate slaughter, but the clerics are not uniformly idiots just beacuse they're bloodthirsty.
No, it's hubris if they start saying 'Why, I'm better at mass murder than Erythnul!' Prior to that they are being good worshipers, killing in his name. And please tell me--what keeps your Chaotic Evil priest advocating murder but not committing murder? I'd like to know.
Saying that you are like a god is pretty hubristic. And what keeps your CE priest from murdering is the simple fact that he wants to survive to see the slaughter of the next day. Being Chaotic Evil doesn't mean you're a creature of pure, dumb instinct. Would he kill if he got the chance? Definately. But he's not going to spend his life nessecarily dedicated to murder himself...he can spend it protecting other murderers, serving as a mouthpeice to the deity, encouraging others to give into their rage. Just because you worship a bestial god does not mean you have to be bestial yourself.
People may use those rationalizations to "accept" the underground chapters of the cult, the same way some people "accept" drug dealers and serial killers. But that doesn't mean they'll like it...
Certainly it means some people like it. And the rest aren't affected enough to try and destroy it.
But in the Greek model, we have Athena, Ares, Zeus, and Apollo all with direct power over battles. In the Egyptian, multiple dieties claim to be creators of the world, with battles and intrigues between the priesthoods. Among the Hindus, we see multiple gods of everything, including sun and battle. Some people pray to all of them, but many more pray to a few of them, or even one of them.
In the Greek case, don't you think you're oversimplifying "battle"? They have direct power over battles, but over different aspects -- Athena was the glory of battle, Ares was the violence of battle, Zeus was victory and strength in battle, and Apollo was archery and beauty. Apollo couldn't preside over bloodshed and violence. Zeus is a bit of an exception, because he's the trump card, but D&D religion has no such trump card.
In the Egyptian and Hindu case, you run into locally developed deities with conflicting ideologies. People chose gods based on their location, their caste, their own personal culture. Not on belief. Comparatively in D&D, you have several creator gods -- Gruumsh, Corellon Larethian, Moradin, Garl Glittergold -- probably all with conflicting myths. Which one you believe in is dictated probably by your race...no one who believed Re created the world would believe that Amun did it, fer'instance. But these in D&D are basically addendums to the core pantheon, not defining them. D&D has three gods of arcane magic -- Vecna, Wee Jas, and Boccob. But they're gods of different aspects of magic -- Vecna governs the secrets and unknown, Wee Jas governs organization, death, and enchantment, and Boccob governs pure knowledge and magical power. When casting a divination, you pray to Boccob. When casting an illusion, Vecna. When using necromancy, Wee Jas.
Wandering the land, following by the holy precepts of Erythnul (forever may He kill), seeking to bring as many as possible into His Bloody Hand, until they are at last brought to it themselves, living lives dedicated to the glories of murder. They frown on possessions, and keep only what they can carry, and while they are not prohibited from enjoying the pleasures of the flesh, they are contemptuous of them, for has not Erythnul said that the purpose of flesh is to kill, or be killing. Oh, your priest of Erythnul knows he can not be killing all the time--that he must sleep, and eat on occasion--but it is a fact he seeks to suppress, a fact he loathes, and tries regularly to prove his superiority to. Yea, their tales resound with such heroic figures as Black Chul, whom never did congress with a woman without slaying her afterwards, Carn the Ragged, whom ate either filth or that which he had killed with his own hands and nothing else, and Kyl Burntloaves who would not rest for the day until he had killed an old man, a young man, a child, and a mother. Meeting under gallows and in cemeteries, they speak of their deeds, and draw their morning stars, each seeking to kill his fellows. To begin their training, many acolytes go under the tutelage of an older priest, who teaches them the ways. If they prove weak, they are killed--if they prove strong, they kill their masters.
Some speak of more settled priests in lands of darkness, whom have sacrifices taken to them--who build churches, and council monarchs. "But fie on them!" shouts the dedicated priest of Erythnul. "This is the life that Erythnul has chosen for me--my hand against all others, and all others hand against mine!" And with weapon raised high, he continues on the bloody path of Erythnul.
Obviously there's nothing wrong with this view. I like it a lot.
But I prefer my gods to be everyday parts of the PC's lives...so I see it
more that the priests of Erythnul, Chaotic and Evil as they are, do not wish to be exterminated. If they lived lives of murder and bloodshed constantly, it's insanity, it's psychopathy. Most clerics of Erythnul, Chaotic Evil as they are, are
not psychopaths....though certainly they don't look down on such creatures.
So they live in a temple at the fringe of society. They are feared and respected, but essential in the operation of life. Most of them live life from day to day encouraging murder, maybe sacrificing an animal or seven, praying to their deity for strength, rage, and gore.
Eyrthnul grants it in the form of goblin raids on the city. They have been more harsh as of late, and more people in the town have succumbed to them. Why? Why have the goblins increased in slaughter? Why must they succumb to this violence? Obviously, some deity must be offended...who? Talk to the Adept...he uses some magic (or at least pretends to, more likely using his Knowledge (religion) or Knowledge (local) skill), determining that the got of Slaughter is to blame for the slaughter. So the mayor sends a small contingent to the temple to ask what the god demands, in exchange for renewed safety. The cleric there sees an opportunity for bloodshed, and so demands a sacrifice. The people of the town lead some boars (sacred to Erythnul) to the temple, where there are killed, and a small feast is held in Eyrhtnul's name, with the entire town praying that the god of slaughter spare them.
Of course, since the cleric was making it up (he had paid the adept to say so, after all, just as he has paid the goblins to attack the village), the goblin raids do not stop...they in fact increase in violence and power, as people show up dead in the night, and the cleric's services become more and more required. The Gods are unhappy, he says. Erythnul is not appeased by the blood of mere beasts. Living, thinking, sentient blood must be spilled, for the transgressions. Who has transgressed? Who is to blame for this? It is the Mayor, whose recent Law of Sanctuary means that this town is a haven for those refugees from the frontiers. As a result, Pelor is becoming too popular in the city. Erythnul demans human sacrifice, from the ruling family, and a repealing of the law...this is not a shocking thing. Five years ago, he wanted the same, and the ruling family happily paid -- to not do so is to
doom the entire town.
The mayor has a long, hard talk with his family -- one of them must die, so that the rest of the town may live. After much deliberation, they select one of his daughters, the eldest one, unlikely to marry since she was disfigured ten years ago when the worgs struck, and her hips were shattered. Clerics could heal her wounds, but the family could not afford to taker her into the city to regenerate her bones. The day before the sacrifice, she is treated like a queen. A great feast is held in her honor, and Erythnul's. Most of the common people are happy she is dying -- it will mean that they will live, after all. True, next time it could be them...but until that time comes, no sense in worrying about it. Each one has their idea of what they will do -- cut and run at the last minute (CE, CN), refuse, and sacrifice yourself instead trying to take as many goblins with you as you can (CG, though Erythnul's cleric will be happy), gladly sacrifice yourself for the good of your town (LG, LN), or get all the gifts from the sacrifice, and then attempt to argue that someone else should be sacrificed (LE). Or 1,001 variations on these ideas. Either way, accepting the death of someone else so that you may live isn't hard for most people (NN) to do. Even if it's someone you care about -- it is the lesser of two evils. Anyway, the daughter is lavished with gifts, riches, finery, a great feast of boar's meat (all the rangers in the town could hunt), and then sacrificed on the steps of the temple.
The Cleric now has had his slaughter. He wants more, but he sees the sad look in the villagers' eyes, notices the look of outright rage that the mayor's son is giving him (Sense Motive!). He knows if there is no effect after this, that his acolyte may accuse *him* of being the problem, rather than the authority figures. So the cleric sends word to a hoboblin tribe to the south that the goblins to the east (the ones attacking the town) are distracted and ripe for the picking. More slaughter. More chaos. And regardless of who wins, he can try it again later, or have his acolyte do the same, when years have passed and this loss fades into obscurity, people can take another one.
That's a
clever CE. That's someone with wisdom.
A mindless killing machine may glorify Erythnul, but most people don't want to be that kind of a martyr. So they think of ways around it...in this guy's case, he encourages overall slaughter (he killed villagers with the goblins, increased doubt of the mayor's policies with his words, and now he's killed goblins with hobgoblins...so much blood....), without ever really risking his own neck. He's Evil. Why would he stick his own hide out, even for a god?
But being as much like Erythnul as he can is going to make him a dysfunctional member of society, unless said society is pretty dysfunctional itself. Now, seeing that Erythnul and his priest are both antisocial, and figuring that in the battle between god and society, god will when, society is going to take a fairly dim view of the priests of Erythnul, and the priests of Erythnul will take a likewise dim view of society.
I disagree. Evil is a part of society, a part of life, and, IMHO, should be reflected every day in the lives of those who live in the world. Slaughter is not something you can, in the world, compartamentalize and push away as simply the acts of madmen or sociopaths. Sure, they are epitomes of slaughter. But they are far from the only way to go about it, and I would argue that they are the rarer way, the more destructive way, the way that most clerics do not take, because they are selfish, they are evil, and they are interested in slaughter on as grand a scale as possible, not just within their own paws. And Chaos likewise is something that goes hand in hand with slaughter. Being Chaotic Evil is not being bestial, being insane, being a savage barbarian. It's something very near at hand to every sentient being...it's not a bogeyman, it's not something in the closet...it's out of the closet and in the soul of everything that happens.
For a modern-esque take on how this could happen, take a look at
Dark Shamans by Neil Whitehead. It's a book on the everyday real-life violence of an Amazonian tribe, and it makes a good case for it not being isloated. Violence, IMHO, is not isolated from society, it's part and parcel of it, *especially* in a world where you could get attacked twice per day.
Right. That whole 'war' aspect of their powers--no help whatsoever.
That's way to general, in my opinion. Not every war is under the dominion of a god with the War domain. They all focus on certain parts of war...Heironeous on the valor and honor, Hextor on the obedient selfishness and cruel rule. Kord on strength and power. Outisde of this, they have no power over war...the slaughter of war is solidly in Erythnul's camp. "War" is far too multifaceted to boil it down to an "all or nothing" approach. Depending on the culture, even "The Valor and Honor of War" may be too multifacted. Heck, for the Greeks, "The Storm" was so multifaceted that it became all-powerful.
The thing is Erythnul is irked at everyone. You don't make him unirked. You pray to him for protection, he sends a horde of rampaging gnolls to your village. You pray to every other god in your pantheon to make sure Erythnul doesn't notice you, and that if he does, they'll protect you. Because the other gods do have some power for or against violence and with their help, you might get out of it alive.
I disagree. Erythnul = Slaughter. No god can save you from it, except the god itself. You don't pray to Erythnul for protection ("Erythnul protect me!"? Naaah), but if you don't pray to him when his attention is on you, you're screwed (if he sees you refusing to honor him, is he going to be cool with that?). Erythnul isn't something that's Out There, Somewhere, Waiting To Get Us. He's something sudden, immediate, every day, every year, part and parcel of the human condition in this world.
People who think that sort of violence is what they need seek him out--others don't.
I would say the case is more that that sort of violence is unaviodable in the D&D world. If you don't seek him out, he finds you and crushes you. To ignore that slaughter exists is like denying that storms exist, that gnomes exist, that the ground exists. To avoid slaughter is like avoiding love. You can't. You will be crushed for trying. Because the god is part of the world, NOT an independant lunatic. If he was an independant lunatic, he would be weak, distant, nothing to worry about every day. But I prefer to think of my gods as immediate, sudden, abrupt, in your face, part of the world, worshiped popularly, and THAT is why they are powerful. If the aspect they control is just for 'someone else,' the god, IMHO, is weak. It's like bringing a goddess of Athenian Democracy to Celtic England....the what the goddess represents has no power in their lives.
Erythnul, I prefer to believe, *has* a power over every life.
The role of the wacky sociopath? That's great. But I prefer fiendish lords for that...Orcus is only part and parcel of the lives of the most fractured individuals, for instance...Erythnul is part and parcel of the lives of everyone.
Again, not that your way is bad, I just think it's an interesting discussion.
