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?
Call them a god, sure. Are they
actually a god? Not necessarily. Archthings can give warlocks power--and archthings include
undead creatures. There's no "arch-undead," so theoretically any old vampire or lich can give out power.
And, for Lolth and Thasmudyan, why would you assume that "archfiend" is nothing more than a title? Why not assume that those two have god-powers
and archfiend-powers?
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.
Neither do I, because I never said that at all.
Gloopy is the god of snails. He pretends to be Pistil, the goddess of flowers, even though snails and flowers are mortal enemies (this is a known proven fact). Eventually, enough people worship Gloopy-as-Pistil (in addition to, or instead of, his aspect as god of snails) to the point that he becomes the god of both snails
and flowers. Which is great for Gloopy; he now has
two parts to his portfolio! Well, other than that he's his own mortal enemy (maybe the dichotomy will make him go crazy), but details, details.
This also assumes that Gloopy doesn't become the god of flowers and
stop being the god of snails. Which is less good for him. More of a sideways promotion.
Now imagine that Pistil is an actual god. If Gloopy pretends to be Pistil, then any energy a god gets from prayer is split between him and Pistil, because he's leeching off of her. Also, at some point, Pistil is going to notice, and flowers or not, she's going to be
pissed. She's going to spray pollen
all up in his nose. Maybe Pistil's boyfriend, Spike, the god of thorns, will beat Gloopy up for this and get himself a new snailhide jacket in the process.
But now imagine that Gloopy was careful and clever enough so that Pistil never noticed, or was never able to figure out he was the one who was leeching off her. He manages to steal her portfolio and Pistil dies from lack of faith, Gloopy is now the god of snails and flowers, and Spike is
his boyfriend now.
Now
all the gods have noticed this. One of their own weakening and dying? Of course they'd see it. And at least one of them is going to be angry at this affront--and is likely to be a
lot more powerful than either Pistil or Spike are. Meaning that, as clever as Gloopy was in stealing the portfolio from another god, he was also
stupid because he didn't realize there would be ramifications from gods more powerful than him.
See the problems here?
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)
Right, which is bad writing on the part of those settings.
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.
I accept that you believe that gods and archfiends are redundant with each other. I have always accepted that. What I
don't accept is the fact that no matter what anyone says or does, you refuse to acknowledge that they have a point--which you can do without even changing your own beliefs on the matter. I don't accept that you have told me that I do gods wrong. I don't accept that you are telling me that having both gods and fiends is "too hard" and will make things "muddled." I don't accept that only having one of those things makes for better stories. I
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.
You can read nearly all of the stories for free (legally) on the
creators' website.
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.
Sure, why not? Beauty and grace are subjective, and I'm one of those people who want female dwarfs to have beards. Can dwarfs dance, sure? It's probably not going to be ballet, but they can dance just fine. A jig, a morrus dance, even the watusi (which also a type of cow, which was confusing when I decided to look it up). I'd bet they can even tap dance. They have the stamina for it. Dwarfs likely wouldn't use
bows because of arm length, but crossbows, yeah. OK, crossbows aren't as "romantic" as a longbow, but hey.
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.
I looked up Rise of Tiamat and it has this line in the introduction: "Calling upon ancient magic and a host of draconic allies, the Cult of the Dragon seeks to unleash Tiamat from her prison in the Nine Hells. By bringing the Queen of Dragons bodily into the world, the cult plans to scour away their foes and usher in a new age of draconic dominance."
So here we learn two things: that Tiamat is imprisoned (she's not in the Nine Hells willingly and can't willingly leave) and the cult wants to bring her "bodily" into the Prime. As in, not her avatar, but
her. Can you see how this is a bit different than Yeenoghu being unable to send an avatar without mortal help.
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.
He has as much structure
as I choose for there to be. And starting from "he isn't a god" isn't working in reverse (and here you are again, telling me I'm doing it wrong). It's taking what we know--that's he's a demon prince--and working from there. You would have to ignore everything that says he's a demon prince, including the site you linked, to claim he's a god.
Literally the only reason to claim he's a god and work from there is if you believe that gods and archfiends are the same.
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.
I don't need "proof." You asked me how I would run him. That's how, by saying that his shrines corrupt the area around them. I do
not say that temples to gods alter their surroundings because then I can't imagine any temple being allowed within city walls--unless I wanted the city to be a theocracy with only a single religion in it. Which I could definitely do, but I'd rather not, because I dislike theocracies.
Why do I do it this way? Because fiends, regardless of type, are a destructive, cancerous force. Their presence on the Prime begins to erode it. Left unchecked, it would eventually break that Prime world into bits and suck it into the lower planes. Gods, even weak, evil gods, can control their world-building natures if they want to do. A god can live on a world for millennia and never affect it unless they chose to. A fiend can't. Fiends are, effectively, not housebroken, and they piddle corrosive evil all over the place.
I don't need "proof" of any of this. I don't need validation from the books. This is one of the ways I differentiate gods and fiends.
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.
No, because there is no problem. You're seeing a problem because, for some reason, you don't want to pick what option to take. You seem to want to have only one option available, instead of several. Too bad. There
is more than one option, and that's a feature, not a bug. Pick the one you like.
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.
FYI: the difference between a cupcake and a muffin is that cupcake batter is beaten longer to produce a lighter crumb and smoother texture. By beating the muffin batter less, it remains lumpier and grainier. Also, cupcakes (being cakes) generally rely on cake flour (or sifted AP flour) where muffins (being quick breads) use AP or self-rising flour, or even things like wheat flour or almond flour, and you can eat a muffin hot or cold whereas it would be really weird to eat a hot cupcake.
So there are, in fact, legitimate differences between cupcakes and muffins, just like there are legitimate differences between god and archthings. The only difference here is that bakers can't just decide that all cupcakes are muffins.
