D&D General The Role and Purpose of Evil Gods

[Voadam]

So, how does, oh let's say Myrkul, the god of Murder, have a whole bunch of "true worshipers" but the divine king of a massive empire doesn't? Also, Nerull getting power from people not worshiping him seems to throw a lot of divine rules out the window.

Quick correction, Myrkul was the FR evil god of the dead, Bhaal was the FR god of murder and assassins. Baal was venerated by murderers.

2e Faiths and Avatars page 45: "Bhaal (Bahl), one of the Dark Gods, was the god of death, particularly of slaying, assassination, and violent death. His was a powerful faith in Faerûn at one time, and the Lord of Murder was venerated by numerous assassins, violent mercenaries, and other brutal and fiendish killers."

He was killed during the Time of Troubles before the ToT tied FR gods more directly to worshippers.

 

[Chaosmancer]

Maybe Iuz isn't very wise and thus has his worshippers continually murdering each other, while Myrkul is wise enough to make sure his worshippers only murder worshippers of other deities?

Not sure if Iuz has ever been portrayed as doing that.

 

[Chaosmancer]

In the Forgotten Realms Ao can and does just assign power levels to gods. It's why no god can come in, gain followers and be a god there. They have to have his approval to be a god.

But didn't he make them reliant on the worship of mortals SPECIFICALLY to make them more responsible to their worshipers? In fact, unlike Greyhawk, Forgotten Realms has long had gods tied to their worshipers, yet now you are saying that AO, what? Makes exceptions for Evil Gods so that they don't need to be responsible to their worshipers, countermanding his own decree?

That doesn't make any sense at all.

 

[Chaosmancer]

Quick correction, Myrkul was the FR evil god of the dead, Bhaal was the FR god of murder and assassins. Baal was venerated by murderers.

2e Faiths and Avatars page 45: "Bhaal (Bahl), one of the Dark Gods, was the god of death, particularly of slaying, assassination, and violent death. His was a powerful faith in Faerûn at one time, and the Lord of Murder was venerated by numerous assassins, violent mercenaries, and other brutal and fiendish killers."

He was killed during the Time of Troubles before the ToT tied FR gods more directly to worshippers.

Ah, knew I should have double checked which of the three was which.

But didn't he come back? I know he had some plot with the Bhaalspawn and I was thinking it worked to a degree.

 

[Maxperson]

But didn't he make them reliant on the worship of mortals SPECIFICALLY to make them more responsible to their worshipers?

Yes, but we don't know how exactly. It might be numbers(probably not), or perhaps numbers have nothing to do with power and if you don't take care of your worshippers you just die. Who knows. We do know that Ao decides who gets to be a god and how powerful, though.

 

[Faolyn]

If the different writers didn't need to consult each other, and came up with opposite rules... doesn't that imply that it didn't really matter and that they were fairly interchangeable? There are even gods who were also specifically Demon Lords, like Thasmudyan from "The Complete Book of Necromancers" from 1995.

No, why would I make the assumption that they were interchangeable? They're writing across editions and across settings and with their own homebrew ideas flavoring what they write.

In fact, if Thasmudyan--had to look him up--was both a god and an archdevil (baatezu were devils), then I would assume that he was both a god and an archdevil. And to me, that would suggest that those are two different things, and he happens to be both. He's multiclassed.

Okay, but that wasn't the original example, so maybe you should be more clear that you are altering the example. You are right, it doesn't make a lot of sense to impersonate another god to get worshipers, of course, you still absolutely could have a false face as a different diety to get worship if you happen to be an evil god of some terrible thing, not that hard to do I'd imagine.

I very clearly have been talking about worshipers this whole time.

And a "false face" is different than actually impersonating another god. And Eberron is very different because the gods may not even exist, and the archfiends aren't rulers of vast planes and engaged in an unending war with other fiends; they're trapped.

3) Um... yeah, so you realize that Helm has a genocide in Matizca right? I'm sure if we dug through the various settings with a fine toothed comb we'd find plenty of "good" beings that committed terrible acts. Dragonlance anyone? Eberron just made it a bit more explicit.

Helm is Lawful Neutral, not Good. And the gods in Dragonlance are a really messed-up version of good that bears little resemblance to actual good. They're more like the original Cosmic Balance Chaos/Law than actual good and evil--to the point that if there's too much Good, they do Evil things to balance it.

I have no reason to show that it is bad. I have talked about how it can end up creating a muddled and confused story, which in my mind is fairly bad, but I don't need to prove it is bad, because I don't care if people think it is good or bad. I simply am pointing out that it is.

Why do I care that people are saying "No, you are wrong, this is the truth"? Well, because I don't think I'm wrong. Is it so strange that I'm responding to people who have a different perspective by trying to convince them of my side? Isn't that the point of discussing? I don't believe in just making a statement then abandoning the field. I defend my ideas.

First you say that you are giving a piece of advice. But giving advice isn't having a "side." It's giving tips. "Hey, you might find it's better to have fewer factions because you can give more time and detail to them than if you have lots of factions."

If instead you have a side, then that means you're not trying to just encourage people to be better DMs. It means you're trying to get people to think the same way that you do. In which case, yes, you have every reason to show its bad: you are making a claim. If you are claiming that having too many factions leads to muddled results, then find an example of that and show how it went wrong.

So what is it: are you offering advice or trying to get everyone to accept your beliefs and reject opposing beliefs? It can't be both.

As for the first part, why am I responding to your answers with the fact that they are redundant? Because you claimed you could tell a story with evil gods that was impossible to tell with Archfiends. So, if your evidence doesn't prove that, then I'm going to tell you that it doesn't. Why can't I accept people enforcing differences they made up? Because you are presenting those not as "here is something you could potentially do" but as "You are wrong that they are redundant, because I made up a reason that they aren't redundant" which doesn't make me wrong, it makes you having made-up facts that did not otherwise exist.

My story ideas only "failed" to prove it because you refuse to accept that there are any differences between gods and archthings in the first place. Of course you're going to dismiss it--accepting it would mean that your basic premise isn't universally accepted.

And yet there are clearly stories that are tied to one and not the other. Elves are not known for many of the same things Dwarves are. In most depictions of them they are incredibly different beings.

If you wanted to say that elves and dwarves are nearly indistinguishable from each other, I'd be interested in seeing your arguments, but just the fact that caves are natural and beautiful doesn't make them the same as living in a forest. And Elves are not really seen in the clan structures that dwarves have, which is a major driver of some dwarven stories.

Oh, but somebody can have a world where elves live in clans and are master smiths! Lots of stories have elves living in tribes, and those are very similar to clans (Elfquest), many elves already live underground (drow, shadow elves, dokkalfar), and elves are already known for their fine craftsmanship, including with metal (elven chain) and alcohol (elven wine). And you can always homebrew it that D&D elves can grow beards (some do in Elfquest). And in many stories, dwarfs are highly magical, either by creating magic items (LotR) or using actual spells (Digger). And in Norse mythology, dwarfs weren't short, they were more human sized. And both elves and dwarfs are long-lived humanoids with long memories who view humans as being somewhat beneath them. So clearly, nobody needs both. It's too hard to write both races well. It'd get muddled.

And really, any story you can tell with dwarfs you can tell with elves. Evil monsters encroaching on the place they use to gather materials? Doesn't matter if it's a mine or a forest, it's the same thing. Someone did something that besmirched the family honor? Doesn't matter if it's an elf or dwarf, it's the same thing. An evil offshoot that was banished to the Underdark is making its presence known? Doesn't matter if it's drow, duegar, or derro, it's the same thing. You don't believe me? It's clearly because you don't have an open mind.

If you don't find this particular argument compelling, well. This is the exact argument you've been using for saying archfiends and evil gods are the same.

And as I said, you don't even need either elves or dwarfs. You don't need any gods, either--you can have nothing but celestials, archfey, and archfiends. Why bother with Correllon when you can include archfey? Why have Ilsensine when you have GOOs?

So you don't need any of these things. If I have dwarfs and elves, it's because I want to. If I have archfiends and evil gods, it's because I want to.

Then how do you run Yeenoghu? You claim you run him differently than me, and I run him how the books say to, so how do you run him?

Actually, I didn't claim I run him differently. I said I would run him differently, since I haven't used him yet and don't like what 5e has done with gnolls (I like hyenas).

Since he's not a god, he can't send avatars with the prime without the use of mortal spellcasters summoning him. He's always looking for spellcasters to "convince" to bring him here, or for magic items that would open gates.

Since he's not a a fiend and not a god, there isn't any structure to the religion that surrounds him. While each cult has a few things in common (specifically, maiming, killing, and eating, not necessarily in that order), most of the rituals, individual beliefs, and goals were created by the cult's high priests, rather than dictated to them by Yeenoghu or one of his direct servitor. Thus, each cult is going to be more different from each other than each temple to a god would be, and each cult leader has their own goal which can be addressed.

Because he's a demon, and demons are corruptive, the area around his shrines is also corruptive, causing evil Regional Effects and general madness. This also means that many of his cultists are mutated in one way. This doesn't happen with gods and their worshipers.

I'm sure I could come up with others, but this is enough for a start.

How would removing redundancies show people that they are redundant? Doesn't that seem counter-intuitive?

If you remove redundancies, then they're no longer redundant.

And, yes, "only gods can create clerics" is something that is not true. You can make it true for your world if you want, but that doesn't make it a true fact of the game.

Yes, it is a true fact that only gods can create clerics. It's also a true fact that gods and archthings and elemental powers can all create clerics. It's also a true fact that a person can become a cleric of a philosophy or ideal, without any gods involved. It's a true fact that a person can lose their clerical abilities if they stray from their god's portfolio. It's also a true fact that they don't lose their clerical abilities no matter how far they stray (seriously, no RAW rules for that in 5e).

Every single one of those is supported by RAW. Every single one of these is a true fact.

So that means you can pick the one you want, and I can pick the one I want, and we're both right.

 

[Voadam]

Ah, knew I should have double checked which of the three was which.

But didn't he come back? I know he had some plot with the Bhaalspawn and I was thinking it worked to a degree.

Apparently so in 4e and 5e FR stuff that I am not as familiar with. 2e through 3e he was considered a dead god with a following trying to bring him back from the dead. In 3.0 Faiths and Pantheons page 5:

"Dead Deities
The constant clash of deities also ensures a steady supply of dead deities whose temples now lie in ruin about Toril. Moreover, death doesn’t necessarily end the career of a deity of Toril. The possibility of resurrection always exists, as evidenced by the recent return of Bane. Small cults dedicated to the resurrection of one lost deity or another appear everywhere in Faerûn. Sometimes the deity is beyond the reach of such cultists or never existed except in myth, and its adherents receive no divine backing in their endeavors. Other times, a dead deity retains enough power to provide divine backing to a handful of worshipers. Occasionally, another deity masquerades in the guise of a dead deity, in hopes of expanding its portfolio. Some dead human deities who retain a handful of adherents include Amaunator (a Netherese sun god), Bhaal (the former deity of murder), Ibrandul (a deity of caverns slain by Shar during the Time of Troubles), Moander (a deity of corruption slain by Finder Wyvernspur), and Myrkul (former god of death whose remaining essence infuses an artifact called the Crown of Horns)."

 

[Chaosmancer]

Yes, but we don't know how exactly. It might be numbers(probably not), or perhaps numbers have nothing to do with power and if you don't take care of your worshippers you just die. Who knows. We do know that Ao decides who gets to be a god and how powerful, though.

So, you want to use a rule for how gods must absolutely work, then call upon AO and say "but we really don't know how it works"

So, if numbers likely have no bearing on how you become a god, why are you focused on numbers?

 

[Mirtek]

Right, so I homebrewed Iuz the Evil? Oh wait, he's a demigod and just the son of a demon. I'm sure that Graz'zt isn't worshiped at all in his kingdom, right?

Yes, I would say that the worhsip of Graz'zt, if it happens at all, is kept pretty small by degree of Iuz himself. He's his own fiend now, he doesn't feel love or loyalty toward his father and has no reason to share his power with him.

 

[Chaosmancer]

No, why would I make the assumption that they were interchangeable? They're writing across editions and across settings and with their own homebrew ideas flavoring what they write.

In fact, if Thasmudyan--had to look him up--was both a god and an archdevil (baatezu were devils), then I would assume that he was both a god and an archdevil. And to me, that would suggest that those are two different things, and he happens to be both. He's multiclassed.

And or he had two different titles, like Lolth, because you are an Archdevil if you have a certain rank in the Hells. Tiamat was the Archdevil of the 1st layer, but she was also a Goddess, and being an Archdevil seemed to be nothing more than a title bestowed on her.

So, to play this out, if you have a being that is worshiped (all of the archdevils have cults that worship them) and can grant powers to those worshipers... wouldn't you call them a god? With no other information than that, they'd be a god because that is our understanding of what gods in DnD are, and being a god and an archdevil isn't impossible by any stretch of the imagination. We could then further imagine that Demon Lords is also a title, granted to beings that command a layer of the Abyss and are served by Demons.

I very clearly have been talking about worshipers this whole time.

And a "false face" is different than actually impersonating another god. And Eberron is very different because the gods may not even exist, and the archfiends aren't rulers of vast planes and engaged in an unending war with other fiends; they're trapped.

"These things are different" doesn't really negate my point that you can tell different stories with DnD.

Also, as to the worshipers, you did mention them, but the first sentence of the example was "Archfiends often try to pervert other religions (good, neutral, and evil ones alike), either making a mockery of the faith's beliefs or introducing fiendish influences." That doesn't have anything to do with getting worshipers to worship you instead of the god, as you can make a mockery of them just because.

Personally, I don't see how making someone worship a good god in the wrong way means that they are now worshiping you in the right way, so I didn't think the worship conversion was really a serious part of the example. Which, again, led to confusion.

Helm is Lawful Neutral, not Good. And the gods in Dragonlance are a really messed-up version of good that bears little resemblance to actual good. They're more like the original Cosmic Balance Chaos/Law than actual good and evil--to the point that if there's too much Good, they do Evil things to balance it.

I don't generally consider "genocide" a neutral act. More Lawful Evil.

But, yes, that is my point. You say that Eberron's removal of alignment allows for otherwise "good" religions to do bad things, but two other settings which have those alignment restrictions did the exact same thing or worse (because they didn't acknowledge it)

The Silver Flame genocide is a horrible tragedy of the history of Khorvaire, and the people acknowledge it. It isn't entirely a story about good people doing a terrible thing, but mainly about people with good intentions, in a hard situation, acting out of fear and ignorance and the harm that did. Yes, it was a terrible thing, but by not focusing on "good" or "evil" Baker was able to craft a compelling narrative about mistakes and scars.

First you say that you are giving a piece of advice. But giving advice isn't having a "side." It's giving tips. "Hey, you might find it's better to have fewer factions because you can give more time and detail to them than if you have lots of factions."

If instead you have a side, then that means you're not trying to just encourage people to be better DMs. It means you're trying to get people to think the same way that you do. In which case, yes, you have every reason to show its bad: you are making a claim. If you are claiming that having too many factions leads to muddled results, then find an example of that and show how it went wrong.

So what is it: are you offering advice or trying to get everyone to accept your beliefs and reject opposing beliefs? It can't be both.

I think I have tried to demonstrate the problems, you decide to ignore the examples and ask me why I don't want to talk about the ways it goes right. Do I have a preference? Yes, I have never denied that. Am I trying to argue that my preference is the one and true righteous way? No.

So, really, you have a choice. You can keep refusing to accept what I say, or you can accept that I'm not arguing what you think I'm arguing. At this point I've corrected you near a dozen times on this fact, but you keep insisting that you know my mind better than I do.

My story ideas only "failed" to prove it because you refuse to accept that there are any differences between gods and archthings in the first place. Of course you're going to dismiss it--accepting it would mean that your basic premise isn't universally accepted.

And you claimed my premise was wrong, and you could provide stories that proved it wrong. So, I accepted your post under that premise, and you were unable to sway me. Then you complain that it wasn't fair because I didn't abandon my premise and just accept your evidence as compelling when it wasn't.

Oh, but somebody can have a world where elves live in clans and are master smiths! Lots of stories have elves living in tribes, and those are very similar to clans (Elfquest), many elves already live underground (drow, shadow elves, dokkalfar), and elves are already known for their fine craftsmanship, including with metal (elven chain) and alcohol (elven wine). And you can always homebrew it that D&D elves can grow beards (some do in Elfquest). And in many stories, dwarfs are highly magical, either by creating magic items (LotR) or using actual spells (Digger). And in Norse mythology, dwarfs weren't short, they were more human sized. And both elves and dwarfs are long-lived humanoids with long memories who view humans as being somewhat beneath them. So clearly, nobody needs both. It's too hard to write both races well. It'd get muddled.

And really, any story you can tell with dwarfs you can tell with elves. Evil monsters encroaching on the place they use to gather materials? Doesn't matter if it's a mine or a forest, it's the same thing. Someone did something that besmirched the family honor? Doesn't matter if it's an elf or dwarf, it's the same thing. An evil offshoot that was banished to the Underdark is making its presence known? Doesn't matter if it's drow, duegar, or derro, it's the same thing. You don't believe me? It's clearly because you don't have an open mind.

If you don't find this particular argument compelling, well. This is the exact argument you've been using for saying archfiends and evil gods are the same.

And as I said, you don't even need either elves or dwarfs. You don't need any gods, either--you can have nothing but celestials, archfey, and archfiends. Why bother with Correllon when you can include archfey? Why have Ilsensine when you have GOOs?

So you don't need any of these things. If I have dwarfs and elves, it's because I want to. If I have archfiends and evil gods, it's because I want to.

I'm not very familiar with Elfquest, I was thinking it was something else when I googled it. But, looking over some of the cover art, I'm curious if the authors actually did combine elves and dwarves to a degree. Maybe some fey as well, since I can't tell if that is a wolf or a badger that is being ridden in some of that art.

But, it seems that you do have some good points on being able to subsume dwarves under the title of elves. Can you do the reverse? Can you have dwarves known for their beauty and grace? Their dancing and skill with a bow? That is something I also have not seen, but maybe it does exist and they are more interchangeable than I first thought.

Actually, I didn't claim I run him differently. I said I would run him differently, since I haven't used him yet and don't like what 5e has done with gnolls (I like hyenas).

I also like hyenas, and I go back and forth on gnolls as a tribal people and gnolls as fiends in flesh, because I like both concepts. But let us look how you would run him differently.

Since he's not a god, he can't send avatars with the prime without the use of mortal spellcasters summoning him. He's always looking for spellcasters to "convince" to bring him here, or for magic items that would open gates.

Tiamat is a goddess. She also can't send avatars to the Prime without the use of mortal spellcasters summoning her. It was the entire plot of an adventure.

Since he's not a a fiend and not a god, there isn't any structure to the religion that surrounds him. While each cult has a few things in common (specifically, maiming, killing, and eating, not necessarily in that order), most of the rituals, individual beliefs, and goals were created by the cult's high priests, rather than dictated to them by Yeenoghu or one of his direct servitor. Thus, each cult is going to be more different from each other than each temple to a god would be, and each cult leader has their own goal which can be addressed.

Most DnD Dogma for gods is equally as scattered and vague. Also, there is no reason for this to be true of Yeenoghu's worship. He clearly has an influence and recognizable rituals. This wiki lays out multiple rituals, dogma, temples, ect Yeenoghu - The Wiki of the Succubi - SuccuWiki

You seem to be working in reverse as well. You start from "he isn't a god" and then tell us how he doesn't have a structure to his religion (which is false, he has as much structure as other chaotic evil gods, which you can see in this wiki entry for Nerul ) But, if you start from the facts about his religion, you would come to the conclusion that he is a god.

Because he's a demon, and demons are corruptive, the area around his shrines is also corruptive, causing evil Regional Effects and general madness. This also means that many of his cultists are mutated in one way. This doesn't happen with gods and their worshipers.

Doesn't happen with Devils either. And you additionally have no proof that his shrines do corrupt the area around them, or that evil god shrines don't. Unhallow is something that can apply to evil god shrines and temples, and could also have regional effects.

If you remove redundancies, then they're no longer redundant.

I suppose this gets into an essence vs detail argument. What is the difference between a juice box and a can? Mostly that one is made of metal, but you could make a juice box out of metal, or a can out of plastic or cardboard. In essence they are the same thing, a receptable for drinking liquids and easily portable, and I would not say I am out of line saying that drinking juice from a juice box or drinking juice from a can really doesn't matter, they are fairly interchangeable.

So, sure, you can find detail differences like "Bane doesn't live in Nessus" but those don't really disprove the larger point.

Yes, it is a true fact that only gods can create clerics. It's also a true fact that gods and archthings and elemental powers can all create clerics. It's also a true fact that a person can become a cleric of a philosophy or ideal, without any gods involved. It's a true fact that a person can lose their clerical abilities if they stray from their god's portfolio. It's also a true fact that they don't lose their clerical abilities no matter how far they stray (seriously, no RAW rules for that in 5e).

Every single one of those is supported by RAW. Every single one of these is a true fact.

So that means you can pick the one you want, and I can pick the one I want, and we're both right.

And this doesn't highlight the problem for you at all? One of the literal only things that makes an evil god different is the statement "evil gods are the only source of evil clerics" but the moment we can show that isn't true, then that difference is gone. If Archfiends can also create clerics, then that cannot be a difference.

This is like saying that the only difference between a cupcake and a muffin is that the muffin is bigger. The moment you bake a cupcake that is bigger, that is no longer a difference, even if people generally think of cupcakes as being smaller, and the rules of baking competitions and cookbooks allow for either one to be true, it can't be a real difference, because it only matters if you are using a particular paradigm of rules.