D&D General The Role and Purpose of Evil Gods

[Chaosmancer]

You can say "Some of the druids from 5e would be shamans in 6e."

That's what I am saying.

The AD&D cleric would encompass the 5e cleric and the 5e warlock.
The AD&D mage would encompass the 5e artificer, the 5e sorcerer, 5e warlock, and the 5e wizard.

In AD&D gods and archfiends could create clerics. From 3e on, archfends' clerics wouldbe warlocks because most archfiends lack a divine rank.

Well, except the Fiendish Codices from 3.5 explicitly gave archfiend’s clerics too. And in 4e when we had fiendish clerics. Which leaves 5e, where we have cultists who worship fiends and explicitly have clerical spells.

And your initial statement wasn’t “clerics of fiends would be warlocks if they were made in 5e” it was “clerics of fiends never existed” which is false. And claiming that 5e would make them warlocks doesn’t make it true that they never existed.

My point is that even though they are LE diey heads of evil organizations, they are not the same.Especially not in Nerath. On the FR they are very similar.

Almost every LE god is a tyrant. Bane, Asmodeus, Tiamat. That's Lawful Evil's most common mo. That's how it works 90% of the time.

However each god has different foci, leaderships styles, and unforgivable actions by subordinates.

I don’t think anyone is doubting that they have different leadership styles or “unforgivable actions”. The point is that they fill the same niche. And the differences between them are small. The idea that “one is the general and one is the king” make massive differences seems to ignore how many times a general has become a king in history, and how many times kings acted as generals. There isn’t a meaningful difference there to latch onto. Tiamat is different because of her focus on dragons, and her actual lack of care about organization or structure (at least in the versions I am most familiar with)

 

[pukunui]

Without having chewed my way through this thread (I will), and not knowing if you've already done it, I'd love to see a write up of your pantheon

Google “Faith of the Seven”. As I said, my version’s a carbon copy. All I did was change the name to the Andarian Septry. I kept the names of the “gods” (Mother, Father, etc) and everything else the same.

 

[Chaosmancer]

Nope. That's just more of your bad extrapolation. Stop with that. A CEO doesn't know every little thing the happens in his company. He broadly sets the course of the company and the lower down management execute his vision.

Nope. Again, bad extrapolation. You need to ask more questions instead of assuming things.

Broadly sets the course where? I never said Asmodeus is aware of every single thing happening in the infinite multiverse, I simply said he is acting in nearly infinite planes, there is a difference there. So, where does Asmodeus act? Is he limited to certain planes or not? Because if he is not then he is acting as I have said. Setting the course for Tyranny across the Infinite Multiverse.

If he is not acting in the multiverse, then where is this big picture CEO acting?

Possibly. He's more powerful in the Realms setting than in any other setting than possibly the points of light. We don't know if he's a god in any others, or how powerful he would be there.

We know he is a Greater God in Exandria. So, that is at least three different primes he is a god in. How many more does he act in for your CEO example to make sense?

Demon Lord stats(same power level as Archdevils) stats are on par with the quasi-deities listed on page 11 of the DMG. An Archdevil isn't even as powerful as a lesser god, let alone a greater god or overgod.

Pg 11 of the DMG doesn’t list any stats. In fact, it doesn’t mention Archfiends (devils or demons) at all. Also, their stats may not represent their full power.

If what you are trying to say is that Titans are CR 23-ish and so are the statted Demon Lords… okay, but none of those demon lords have been given powers we know that they have in those statblocks, such as creating warlocks or altering their home planes.

In fact, we know that this comparison is false, because the Quasi-Dieities can’t hear and answer prayers, yet Yeenoghu, not even the most powerful of the Demon Lords, absolutely can hear prayers and answer them. This is how he empowers the Gnolls which worship him. In fact, most Demon Lords and Archdevils can hear prayers. Part of Levistus’s punishment by Asmodeus is to be forced to answer prayers of the desperate to escape their situations, as stated in Mordenkainen’s tome of foes.

So, your assertion is not true, their combat statblocks do not represent their full power, and they can do things that Quasi-Deities are explicitly not allowed to do.

I don't know the Fiendish Codex. Never seen it.

Well I quoted it earlier, I can’t search for the quotes as I am writing this, because the wi-fi here blocks the site and I’m typing answers in word to post later, but it explicitly states clerical domains for worshipers of Demons and Devils.

Edit: Link here D&D General - The Role and Purpose of Evil Gods

Spoiler: Text Spoiled Here

It's correct that worshipping a demon lord the power is drawn from abyss its self - they will be drawn from Chaos and Evil. As such, a cleric that worships a demon lord should at least have one of these.

Source: Fiendish Codex I - Hordes of the Abyss pg. 82.

HOWEVER manu demon lords actually grant access to more domains, for instance Orcus grants his clerics access to: Chaos, Death, Demonic, and Evil - Source: Fiendish Codex I - Hordes of the Abyss pg. 74.

As for devil worship - ALL clerics that worship an Archdevil can choose the Baator domain, furthermore they get access to domains depending on the Archdevil they worship or cult they're in.

Source: Fiendish Codex II - Tyrant of the Nine Hells pg. 26.

Say what?

What does how they draw power have to do with how much power they have? It isn’t a hard question. The source doesn’t have anything to do with the amount.

Their power varies from plane to plane. It's a bit confusing, but there is only one Thor, but he is also simultaneously however many Thors are gods on however many planes he's a god. When he manifests as a god of X setting, he has X power. When he manifests as a god of Y setting, he has Y power. X and Y might be different.

So, if someone infiltrates his home plane to kill him, does he have Power X, Power Y or Power X+Y?

Yes I can see the problem you've created, but it's not an actual game problem.

You can assume many things.

The only place a god is powerless is at the base of the spire. Asmodeus would be powerless there as well.

That's not my argument. His power is not diffused anywhere. It's simply not infused by the vast majority of settings.

So, stop ignoring my question by making non-statements. If the only place a God is powerless is the Spire, then the power of a deity is not limited by their location. A god of X power still retains some of that power elsewhere.

I’m not talking about if a being steps on a Prime what is their power level, I’m talking in their home. If they are singular, then in their home they should have access to all of their power, unless they are powerless at home, because all of their power is invested in places that aren’t their home.

Because it doesn't work that way by RAW. It's impossible to bank 10 dollars worth of power in a million different planes and have it add up to anything other than 10 dollars worth of power in each separate plane. Only the guy with the million dollars matters and then only at that bank(setting).

See, this is your misunderstanding right here. You are looking at each prime individually, but each entity is singular, and the power is personal. Under this model the easiest way to kill a god is to get them a small following on a new plane of existence. They go to check it out, and since you have more power there then them, you kill them, and then is doesn’t matter that in a different plane where you both operate they are stronger than you.

But logically, this makes no sense, because this makes the power non-personal, and we’ve stated that it is personal power that we are talking about.

Only one aspect of LE is tyranny. You can in fact be LE and not be a tyrant in any way, shape or form. LE =/= Tyranny.

So, what about the Nine Hells makes them non-tyranical?

 

[Chaosmancer]

How so?

If one assumes there's more than one life-bearing world in the Prime Material universe(s), and that the deities are universal, the Prime Material worship strengths would be vaguely even, in sum total.

All the worship the Demon and Devil Lords get from the Abyss or Hell is cancelled out by all the worship the other deities get from the spirits in their own lands of the dead (e.g. Valhalla/Gladsheim/Niflheim for the Norse deities, etc.); as Hell and the Abyss are just land-of-the-dead variants.

Well, this requires some assumptions, which DnD has made.

1) Prime Planes are not infinite. They have limits.

1a) Even if they are infinite, and therefore have infinite life-bearing worlds on them, the Demons and Devils can access those worlds as easily as the gods.

2) Most Gods are limited to a single Prime, they are not as was put “multi-sphere” powers. Demon Lords and Archdevils are.


3) In either case, If you have access to a near infinite number of primes, whether or not each Prime is itself nearly infinite, and you compare yourself to a being that has access to a set number of primes, then you have more claim then them.

4) If area claimed can be tied to power, then infinite infinities is more than infinity. Which I know, infinity is weird, but I don’t believe the Prime’s are actually infinite, since Spelljammer allows you to reach the edge of the prime.

 

[Chaosmancer]

Has anyone actually said that evil gods are definitely the only source for evil clerics? It's clear that's not RAW in D&D, if only because of EGW--but I think that's a perfectly good distinction for DMs to make. I know I've mentioned it, but that's my houseruling on the subject. Are you assuming that people's personal houserules have to be RAW?

Yes, people have actually said it. Go back and read the beginning of the thread. Half my posts have been trying to prove to them that it isn't RAW, so no, I am not assuming that their Houserules are RAW, they are, and I am trying to prove otherwise

Because as I said, I don't think most people really care. Maybe Maxperson has been insisting on taking in total number of worshipers per multiverse, I dunno. Maybe that's how his games go. But even taking dream of the blue veil into consideration, I don't think that D&D is assuming that we the DMs are actually going to sit down and count the worshipers across the multiverse to determine deity power levels.

I am only considering the arguments that have been made and the reality of the game world. It doesn't practically matter whether or not people count the worshippers anyways. No one is expecting a DM to count the number of worshipers of a Greater God anyways.

You have a tendency to go "Ah-ha! You said this thing, and now you're saying this other thing! It can't be both!" Which is both annoying and counterproductive, especially in cases like this. You haven't done that with me (this thread), but I've seen you do it to others here, so if you want a worthwhile discussion, you might want to tone that down.

Not every statement is supposed to be so absolute that it excludes anything contradictory.

Thank you for the lecture. Consider me properly chastened and contrite as you clearly know better than me. You are still trying to offer homebrew solutions to what we can do with the gods, when the initial discussion of trying to figure out what their role is is still ongoing.

The OP is already going to homebrew. But they wanted to see what the answer to the question was, offering homebrew solutions doesn't progress the conversation, and it doesn't take into consideration their desires.

So I went through Mordenkainan's again and have come to the following conclusions:

1) Demons and devils (and therefore demon lords and archdevils) are focused on the Blood War. They recruit mortal worshipers primarily to gain an advantage in the war:


2) But evil gods care about the Material Plane and their worshipers, and only care about the Blood War when it directly affects those two.

That's the difference between arch-things and gods, and that's the difference in their roles.

So, as long as you use the Blood War in your game, even as just the idea that it exists, somewhere in the multiverse, you can easily have both arch-things and evil gods with no overlap.

So the role of evil gods is to care about the material plane and not the Blood War? Question, what about the War between Gruumsh and Magbuliyet? Does that make them care less about the Material Plane because they are looking to expand their worshipers to get an advantage?

Not only do you seem to be approaching this from the other side, ie "what is the role of Demon Lords and Archdevils" but you have come to a conlcusion that is rather self-defeating. Their role is to fight the Blood War which cancels out their ability to focus fully on things not the Blood War.

But, if you take away the Blood War... you still have valid reasons for Archdevils and Demon Lords to exist. They don't require the Blood War, it is just an excuse to deal with the issues of how powerful both groups are. And it also has nothing to do with the role of Evil gods, because without the Blood War, the Demons and Devils are focused on the material plane and their people there, which is the exact same as the Evil Gods.

I'm not trying to "AHA!!" you and take this as exlcuding all other things, obviously the Blood War plays a role in all this, but it can't answer the question of the role of Evil Gods, because they have nothing to do with the Blood War.

 

[Minigiant]

Well, except the Fiendish Codices from 3.5 explicitly gave archfiend’s clerics too. And in 4e when we had fiendish clerics. Which leaves 5e, where we have cultists who worship fiends and explicitly have clerical spells.

And your initial statement wasn’t “clerics of fiends would be warlocks if they were made in 5e” it was “clerics of fiends never existed” which is false. And claiming that 5e would make them warlocks doesn’t make it true that they never existed.

My statement was fiends can't create clerics. And they can't with their fiendishness.

They need to be deities as well on that plane, have divine ranks, or have access to some untied fountain of divine power.

It's not "When he's an archdevil so he can grant cleric spells". Every devil or demon who can create clerics is a special case.

The point is that they fill the same niche

They don't though

On one setting one is the god of war and the other is the god of evil rulers.

One another, one is the god of evil rulers and the other is the god of excessive sin.

It's like saying Ares and Zeus are the same. Or Hades and Dionysus.

 

[Chaosmancer]

Whether archdevils and demon lords are deities and can grant spells has varied across editions and sources.

In the Book of Vile Darkness for 3e on page 123 for example it says:

"ARCHFIENDS AND CLERICS
The demon lords and archdevils described in this chapter cannot grant spells to clerics. Instead, they act as patrons for clerics who devote themselves to abstract sources of divine power, and they assist the clerics of evil gods. They have worshipers who perform sacrifices in their name, but they don’t run organized religions the way gods do.
If you want the demon lords and archdevils to have organized faiths and grant spells, it’s easy to do so. Chapter 6 identifies which domains each archfiend would be associated with (see the Cleric Domains section in the spell lists). If you have the Deities and Demigods book, you can give each demon lord and archdevil divine rank 1 and adjust their statistics accordingly."

This was before warlocks which came out in 3.5.

Just before someone like @Maxperson only reads the initial bolded section

"ARCHFIENDS AND CLERICS

The demon lords and archdevils described in this chapter cannot grant spells to clerics. Instead, they act as patrons for clerics who devote themselves to abstract sources of divine power, and they assist the clerics of evil gods. They have worshipers who perform sacrifices in their name, but they don’t run organized religions the way gods do.

If you want the demon lords and archdevils to have organized faiths and grant spells, it’s easy to do so. Chapter 6 identifies which domains each archfiend would be associated with (see the Cleric Domains section in the spell lists). If you have the Deities and Demigods book, you can give each demon lord and archdevil divine rank 1 and adjust their statistics accordingly."

So, the book said yes and no at the same time.

 

[Chaosmancer]

My statement was fiends can't create clerics. And they can't with their fiendishness.

They need to be deities as well on that plane, have divine ranks, or have access to some untied fountain of divine power.

It's not "When he's an archdevil so he can grant cleric spells". Every devil or demon who can create clerics is a special case.

Specifically proven untrue in previous editions. The 1st edition Deities and Demigods explicitly said they should be treated as Lesser Gods, meaning they can create clerics. Book of Vile Darkness said no, then said actually if you want to, they have Divine Rank 1, making them deities and giving them explicit spheres/portfolios/domains

They don't though

On one setting one is the god of war and the other is the god of evil rulers.

One another, one is the god of evil rulers and the other is the god of excessive sin.

It's like saying Ares and Zeus are the same. Or Hades and Dionysus.

So, you can answer the question of how sin can exist in DnD? Because I've brought it up multiple times and no one seems to have an answer to that one.

If Asmodeus is the same being in both places, then how does he stop being a tyrannical ruler to let Bane take over that spot? Does his personality noticeably change between realms?

 

[Minigiant]

Specifically proven untrue in previous editions. The 1st edition Deities and Demigods explicitly said they should be treated as Lesser Gods, meaning they can create clerics. Book of Vile Darkness said no, then said actually if you want to, they have Divine Rank 1, making them deities and giving them explicit spheres/portfolios/domains

You can't keep going back and forth.

I've been very consistent.

Before the invention of warlock, there was only one class for gifted power. So all beings of high power created clerics because that's all their were.

After warlocks were added and made mainstream, there became more ways to grant power. Cleric creation was gated between the previous concept of divine rank. Warlocks and binders were not. The divine ranks of many beings were faded away as there was a new tool for them to have access to spellcasters. They could only make warlocks or binders unless they gained a divine rank or had access to a power with divine rank.

So, you can answer the question of how sin can exist in DnD? Because I've brought it up multiple times and no one seems to have an answer to that one.

If Asmodeus is the same being in both places, then how does he stop being a tyrannical ruler to let Bane take over that spot? Does his personality noticeably change between realms?

I never bought the idea that gods are the same in multiple settings.

It's a stupid idea in my opinion.
Asmodeus and Bane cannot the same being in both places because they act different.

 

[Doug McCrae]

Further on the cleric issue: in OD&D v1 Men & Magic, we are told that

Clerics of 7th level and greater are either "Law" or "Chaos", and there is a sharp distinction between them.​

The list of Chaotic beings a couple of pages later includes Evil High Priests, but nothing is said about where their power comes from. I don't think there are any demons or devils presented in those original three books. @Doug McCrae probably knows more about this?

OD&D

I think this excerpt from Jon Peterson, Playing at the World (2012) is correct:

Dungeons & Dragons has almost nothing to say on the subject of the divine, on the god or gods that might be revered by Clerics; although later supplements fill this gap, the 1974 woodgrain box gives us priests entirely without religion.​

The balrog is the most demon-like creature in 1974 D&D, in my view. Demons and demon princes – Demogorgon and Orcus – first appear in D&D Book VI Eldritch Wizardry (1976). Gods are in Book VII Gods, Demi-Gods & Heroes (1976).

The 1974 D&D cleric is heavily influenced by Christianity, with spells such as Turn Sticks to Snakes. It seems plausible therefore that the "Anti-Cleric" (Book I, pg 34) who casts reversed versions of some cleric spells is a Satanist. Another, similar, possibility is suggested by the entry for the Aztec god, Mictlantecuhtli, in Book VII: "Any person that worships this god is definitely worshipping Chaos itself, since Mictlantecuhtli craves death."

Fiction That Inspired OD&D

Poul Anderson's Three Hearts and Three Lions (1953 novella, 1961 novel) and Michael Moorcock's 60s and 70s Eternal Champion stories are the two most important sources for alignment in OD&D.

In Anderson's novel most of humanity, Christianity, Judaism, and Islam are on the side of Law. Witches, warlocks, demons, and the god Pan are on the side of Chaos. It's hinted, but not made explicit, that Satan is the ultimate leader of the forces of Chaos.

'In olden time,' said Hugi, 'richt after the Fall, nigh everything were Chaos, see ye. But step by step 'tis been driven back. The longest step was when the Saviour lived on earth, for then naught o' darkness could stand and great Pan himself died.​

​

Christianity, Judaism, even Mohammedanism frowned on witchcraft, that was more allied to Chaos than to orderly physical nature.​

​

He [Alfric, leader of the Faeries] was not the head of the enemy. Morgan le Fay outranked him, and beyond her must be others, clear on to a final One whom Holger did not wish to think about.​

This passage from Moorcock's Elric novella "Sad Giant's Shield" (1964) describing "the camp of Chaos" is strongly reminiscent of the Christian hell and its demons:

The towering Ships of Hell dominated the place… Shooting flames of all colours seemed to flicker everywhere over the camp, fiends of all kinds mingled with the men, the evilly beautiful Dukes of Hell [Lords of Chaos] conferred with the gaunt faced kings who had allied themselves to Jagreen Lern and perhaps now regretted it… The noise was dreadful, blending of human voices and roaring Chaos sounds, devil's wailing laughter and, quite often, the tortured scream of a human soul who had perhaps relented his choice of loyalty and now suffered madness. The stench was disgusting, of corruption, of blood, and of evil.​

Modules

The clerics in B2 The Keep on the Borderlands (1979) worship demons. There is a "demon idol" in the "chambers of the evil priest." Anyone who picks up the "relics of evil" in the "chapel of evil and chaos" falls under "the influence of a demonic spell." One of the clerics plans to sacrifice the captive medusa as part of "a special rite to a demon."

In I2 Tomb of the Lizard King (1982), the clerics allied with the lizard king Sakatha are "demon-worshiping." The Type I demon, Grzzlat, "was ordered by a cleric to carry a few spells up to this plane." I think that's a reference to this passage in AD&D 1e Deities & Demigods (1980): "Third, fourth and fifth level spells are granted by the supernatural servants or minions of the cleric's deity."

EDIT: Corrected letter code for module I2.