D&D General The Role and Purpose of Evil Gods

[Chaosmancer]

Two groups, both called "elven ancestors" is not four groups. "Choose a god, a pantheon of gods, or some other quasi-divine being..." If you're going to say someone is utterly wrong, it's best for you not to be utterly wrong with your proclamation. That's the first thing. The second thing is that "Or some other quasi-divine being" is 33 characters, and "or choose elven ancestors" is only 25 and would actually tell people accurate information(if your assumption was true, which it's not). Third, the elven ancestors aren't even quasi-divine. They were like CR 9 creatures. Fourth,

So, going back to my original list, which had four groups is somehow me being "utterly wrong", so instead I should have, what? Ignored my original list because you wanted to say that it was faster to say five words?

Also, "elven ancestors" is inaccurate. Because that would make it sound like it applies to any elven ancestors, which is doesn't, as most elven cultures don't do ancestor worship, so even if you did the bare minimum it would be: "or choose The Court of the Undying or The Spirits of the Past..." which is 49 characters.

And the Undying Court is Quasi-Divine, which is fairly obvious if instead of looking at the CR of a single member of the Court you look at how the Court as a whole acts.

It does not make it clear what the power levels are, no. However, since the acolyte tells players to look for quasi-divine beings(demigods) on that list, people are going to wonder which ones are.

Or, they will see the beings not listed "gods" and think they were those. Or, they won't even read the acolyte that closely and worry about it.

Also, let's not start adding text it tells players they can look for "quasi-divine beings" not "quasi-divine beings (demigods)"

They also aren't titans or vestiges. Demigod is the closest thing on the list to them the "demigods" of old which are on the list as quasi-divine deities.

So if they aren't demigods, Titans or vestiges... maybe they aren't Quasi-Divine and instead are Divine? I mean, why are you so convinced that 5e didn't change things, and that instead they MUST be breaking their own rules to force things into categories that are "close enough" while not being what they defined those categories as?

The game provides no mechanism for hearing requests for omens and the request being granted. It's DM Fiat pure and simple.

But the English language does. And it is called "Prayer".

See, you are trying to twist this into some PC doing a thing at the table and the DM deciding to do it. But that isn't required for what I said. It could be a backstory element. The point is that you would call it "prayer".

Going down to tell a clerics, "Hey, Tempus wants you to beat up Fzoul." or deliver a message on that portfolio in person to a temple to let them know how important the request is, or personally handle something on another plane for Tempus since he's busy, or, or, or, or... Simply granting spells takes no time away from Tempus. It can't or he wouldn't have any time for anything else but granting spells to his own clerics.

So, he has to give her the ability to grant spells, because 5e days that a demigod can't do that. Yes, I know demigods of older editions could, but in 5e they can't. It says so directly.

And the rest of the stuff you have listed is to have a "god" who is worshiped on the mortal plane as... a glorified Deva. But sure, her only role is to fly down to the material wold to deliver messages that Tempus wants people to realize are important. That's why people pray to her as the Lady of Strategy.

Literally did not. I've been arguing with you for pages now that Iuz is a demigod BECAUSE he does NOT have large bodies of followers, because if he did he would be a lesser or greater god. YOU are the one arguing that he must have a lot.

Because he has always been portrayed as being worshiped by his Empire. Which is big. And other posters have provided more information.

 

[pemerton]

Because he has always been portrayed as being worshiped by his Empire. Which is big. And other posters have provided more information.

@Maxperson does not have any textual evidence that Iuz is not widely worshipped by the evil inhabitants of his realm. In fact, to the extent that there is any evidence it all pushes the other way: the folio implies that he is worshipped, the boxed set goes further and stats him out as a (demi-)god, From the Ashes has details for his clergy, and Iuz the Evil talks about his church, has the Boneheart full of clerics, etc. The reason he is written as a demi-god, as best I can tell, is because that is how Gygax always seems to have described the beings that Zagyg had trapped in the GH dungeons and who were subsequently released by adventurers (I think it was Robilar).

Maxperson is asserting that Iuz has few worshippers simply on the basis that he is a demigod; and Maxpersons's ground for this claim is not any of the fiction actually written about Iuz, but rather a rule stated in some other D&D text that says that divine status correlates to number of worshippers.

It's an example of confusing (i) textual interpretation and criticism with (ii) positing a fiction that no one ever actually wrote by treating certain rules that no published author of GH material ever seems to have taken seriously as if they are part of the inner logic of the fiction.

The phenomenon described in the previous paragraph is basically the whole of the explanation of the bulk of this thread: people reasoning about D&D as if it were amenable to presentation as an axiomatic system, rather than what it actually is - which is a series of works published at different times and written by different authors, most of whom didn't care about what was written in (eg) DDG on the topic of divine status, because that DDG stuff was irrelevant to the fiction they wanted to create.

 

[Voadam]

Also, "elven ancestors" is inaccurate. Because that would make it sound like it applies to any elven ancestors, which is doesn't, as most elven cultures don't do ancestor worship, so even if you did the bare minimum it would be: "or choose The Court of the Undying or The Spirits of the Past..." which is 49 characters.

And the Undying Court is Quasi-Divine, which is fairly obvious if instead of looking at the CR of a single member of the Court you look at how the Court as a whole acts.


Or, they will see the beings not listed "gods" and think they were those. Or, they won't even read the acolyte that closely and worry about it.

Also, let's not start adding text it tells players they can look for "quasi-divine beings" not "quasi-divine beings (demigods)"


So if they aren't demigods, Titans or vestiges... maybe they aren't Quasi-Divine and instead are Divine? I mean, why are you so convinced that 5e didn't change things, and that instead they MUST be breaking their own rules to force things into categories that are "close enough" while not being what they defined those categories as?

I've lost the thread here again.

5e DMG page 11 says there are divine beings who are not gods and do not grant spells-specifically demigods born of a god and a mortal, titans who are divine creations, and vestiges who are dead gods who are the three types of quasi-deities.

Later on it talks about other options besides normal D&D default pantheons of deities such as for animism, a monotheistic cosmology, and forces and philosophy as the source of clerical spells, plus Dark Sun's elemental beings as the source.

It has a statement that under the rules clerics use domains and not gods so whatever a DM picks is fine, which cuts against hard statements about demigods not granting spells.

So what is the status of the Eberron Undying Court and the Spirits of the past based on the 5e PH and DMG?

They are listed under other other faiths and have cleric domains listed.

Are they are quasi-deities?

Are they full gods?

Are they something else?

Are the ancestral spirits deities and so have suggested cleric domains?

5e seems to go back and forth within the core books on these things.

 

[Minigiant]

D&D Tradition

Eat Cake but also Have Cake

 

[Mirtek]

D&D Tradition

Eat Cake but also Have Cake

Writer 3: I guess I just use cookies for my story, just screw the parts that previously refered to cake

 

[Maxperson]

[B]@Maxperson does not have any textual evidence that Iuz is not widely worshipped by the evil inhabitants of his realm. [/B]In fact, to the extent that there is any evidence it all pushes the other way: the folio implies that he is worshipped, the boxed set goes further and stats him out as a (demi-)god, From the Ashes has details for his clergy, and Iuz the Evil talks about his church, has the Boneheart full of clerics, etc. The reason he is written as a demi-god, as best I can tell, is because that is how Gygax always seems to have described the beings that Zagyg had trapped in the GH dungeons and who were subsequently released by adventurers (I think it was Robilar).

Maxperson is asserting that Iuz has few worshippers simply on the basis that he is a demigod; and Maxpersons's ground for this claim is not any of the fiction actually written about Iuz, but rather a rule stated in some other D&D text that says that divine status correlates to number of worshippers.

I don't have to prove a negative. You guys have to prove the positive and beyond there being a church and some clerics, there's nothing to show that he has a large following.

 

[Maxperson]

So, going back to my original list, which had four groups is somehow me being "utterly wrong", so instead I should have, what? Ignored my original list because you wanted to say that it was faster to say five words?

Also, "elven ancestors" is inaccurate. Because that would make it sound like it applies to any elven ancestors, which is doesn't, as most elven cultures don't do ancestor worship, so even if you did the bare minimum it would be: "or choose The Court of the Undying or The Spirits of the Past..." which is 49 characters.

And the Undying Court is Quasi-Divine, which is fairly obvious if instead of looking at the CR of a single member of the Court you look at how the Court as a whole acts.

Context is your friend. We are discussing the sentence about Apendix B, so no, any elven ancestor would not apply. Also, the elven court is not any of the three categories of quasi-divine beings. They are not demigods. They are not titans. And they are not vestiges. If you're going to be a stickler about demigod, you can't turn around and declare that beings that don't fit into any of the three categories are quasi-divine beings. If you can add them, I can add in The Red Knight and others as demigods.

Which is it?

So if they aren't demigods, Titans or vestiges... maybe they aren't Quasi-Divine and instead are Divine?

As a CR 9 monster? Nope.

I mean, why are you so convinced that 5e didn't change things, and that instead they MUST be breaking their own rules to force things into categories that are "close enough" while not being what they defined those categories as?

You can't assume a change. You have to be able to prove a change. Not everything changed.

But sure, her only role is to fly down to the material wold to deliver messages that Tempus wants people to realize are important.

Oookay, like that's what I said.

Because he has always been portrayed as being worshiped by his Empire.

No he hasn't. He has been portrayed to have an empire, and to have worshippers, but nothing says that the entire empire worships him. That's you making gross assumption.

 

[pemerton]

5e seems to go back and forth within the core books on these things.

Which is hardly surprising. Most D&D advice books don't set out to create complete, impermeable, unchangeable frameworks within which to express any possible D&D setting. From DDG onwards (at least - maybe I should be saying from the Supplements onwards or even from Chainmail onwards) they have presented what are intended to be useful ideas and categories out of which one might build a setting and its many and multi-faceted elements.

The fact that a D&D advice book has a section on animals and another on plants doesn't mean that a particular D&D setting can't contain creatures that are both (eg some interpretations of Treants or Wolves in Sheep's Clothing might take such a line). It's a heuristic, not a statement of axioms.

Likewise for discussions of gods. It's madness to look at one proffered taxonomy in one part of one book - the 5e DMG, the original DDG, or anything else - and think that every imaginable D&D setting will, or must, fit into ti!

 

[pemerton]

I don't have to prove a negative. You guys have to prove the positive and beyond there being a church and some clerics, there's nothing to show that he has a large following.

He has been portrayed to have an empire, and to have worshippers, but nothing says that the entire empire worships him. That's you making gross assumption.

I really don't know what you're talking about.

Boxed set campaign guide, pp 27, 57:

In addition to the many evil clerics, thieves, fighters, assassins, and magic-users who have gathered under the grim banner of Iuz, numbers of the foulest tribes of humanoids have grown in strength and are ready to march. Goblins, orcs, and hobgoblins in the thousands are known to be in arms, selling the human contingents of Iuz's armies. . . .​

​

Iuz rules a portion of Oerth . . . Few creatures beyond the boundaries of this domain will speak his name, let alone adore him. . . .​

​

There is great enmity between Iuz and St Cuthbert. This is carried on by the servants of Iuz and St Cuthbert's followers as well.​

From the Ashes Atlas of the Flanaess, pp 29, 94:

Terrifying tales circulate about events in the lands of Iuz. His priests are known to carry ebony staves tipped with silver and bound skulls . . . A steady stream of victims from all the new lands subject to Iuz's rule is herded towards Dorakaa along the Highway of Skulls. The nature of their dispatch does not bear thinking about. . ..​

​

Senior priests are now token rulers of many provinces of Iuz's expanded domain, although Iuz holds them responsible for events therein, so this is a mixed blessing.​

Iuz the Evil, pp 4, 6, 7, 15:

In his homeland, Iuz has total control of the evil bandits and humanoids who dwell therein. . . In some lands humanoids form the majority; in others, this is not so. . .. The role of fiends differs greatly from land to land also, and while in some lands humans are used as slaves and sacrifices only, in other Iuz's forces still seek to draw evil (or at least non-good) people into their fold. . . .​

​

The control problem takes different forms. Sometimes, it is simply making sure that chaotic or poorly-disciplined humanoids don't disobey orders . . . Iuz's priesthood, and sometimes a fiend or two, are given this duty and generally they discharge it well enough. . . .​

​

Iuz has been able to rise in power so swiftly in part because no great Power of Oerth has struck out against him. There is an important reason for this. Iuz has the Prime Material as his home plane, and Oerth as his home world within that plane. Other Powers dwell elsewhere and look over many worlds on the Prime Material. Thus, they do not give Oerth the undivided attention Iuz does, and it is almost a Law of the Powers that they do not intervene directly in the Prime Material to strike at a deity which has its being there. . . . So, Iuz has his own domain and other Powers cannot, or choose not to, act against him. . . .​

​

Priest of Iuz rule by fear over the slaves, humanoids, non-priestly human servitors of Iuz, least fiends, and even lesser fiends if the priest is powerful enough. . . . In the lands where Iuz has a firm grip, a chronic state of fear runs through the priesthood. Each fears his senior and feels unable to act against them . . .​

​

[T]he term "Land of Iuz" is used to denote the original heartland of the Old One. . . . The priesthood of Iuz rules this land. . . . everyone knows who's in command here.​

The Living Greyhawk Gazetteer, p 58:

Iuz, Empire of . . .
Religion: Iuz . . . all others are aggressively suppressed, particularly cults of Nerull and Vecna, and any Good religions . . .​

I think it's pretty clear that there are many clerics/priests of Iuz. They rule his land(s) through fear. Control over the evil dwellers in Iuz's heartland/homeland is total.

We're not told how sincere any of this is. But sincerity doesn't seem like an integral part of the worship of a chaotic evil demigod who rules through fear.

 

[Chaosmancer]

I've lost the thread here again.

The main thrust of the debate is as follows.

There is an oddity in that beings like Iuz are listed as "gods" in the PHB Appendix B, while traditionally he is a demigod. Max attempted to show that this is because the 5e designers didn't care about the "divine rank" of the beings posted in the tables, and found six more traditional demigods in the Sword Coast whose table entries called them gods. I pointed out though that the Sword Coast consistently calls them gods, and never calls them demigods.

Max then referred to the Acolyte background, which says you can be an acolyte of a god, pantheon of gods, or Quasi-Divine beings found in Appendix B. He has concluded that this can only possibly mean demigods, like Iuz was, which would mean Iuz is really a Demigod and just listed as a god. Iuz is also the only one in appendix B this applies to, maybe Heracles.

I have countered by proposing that it is possible that the Appendix B listings for things in Eberron like the Undying court and the Blood of Vol are what are being referred to here, since they are not gods or pantheons of gods, and are in Appendix B. Max has insisted I am utterly wrong.

5e DMG page 11 says there are divine beings who are not gods and do not grant spells-specifically demigods born of a god and a mortal, titans who are divine creations, and vestiges who are dead gods who are the three types of quasi-deities.

Later on it talks about other options besides normal D&D default pantheons of deities such as for animism, a monotheistic cosmology, and forces and philosophy as the source of clerical spells, plus Dark Sun's elemental beings as the source.

It has a statement that under the rules clerics use domains and not gods so whatever a DM picks is fine, which cuts against hard statements about demigods not granting spells.

So what is the status of the Eberron Undying Court and the Spirits of the past based on the 5e PH and DMG?

They are listed under other other faiths and have cleric domains listed.

Are they are quasi-deities?

Are they full gods?

Are they something else?

Are the ancestral spirits deities and so have suggested cleric domains?

5e seems to go back and forth within the core books on these things.

I definitely agree that there is a lot of back and forth in the core books. If I had to untangle it I would say this. The Greater God, Lesser God, Quasi-Divine Being split is mostly aimed at the traditional DnD models of the cosmos. Loose Pantheons like what are found in Greyhawk and others.

Eberron is not standard, and frankly, I'd say that the distinctions make little to no sense in Eberron. Knowing Eberron as I do, I'd say that the Silver Flame and the Undying Court would be "quasi-dieties" only because the "true gods" of Eberron are omni-present forces that can never be directly communicated with, while the Silver Flame has a terrestial prescence and the you can have luncheon with the Undying Court. But that implies a weakness in those two forces that is fundamentally wrong, so even that isn't exactly accurate.

And the more you change from the standard model, the less useful the terms and rules of the DMG are.