D&D General The Role and Purpose of Evil Gods

[Chaosmancer]

3.0 Deities and Demigods page 25 is where the description of divine ranks has the statements about ranks and worshipers progressing from demigods with hundreds to thousands of worshipers to greater deities who "may have millions" that both go up until you hit over-deity status.

Pages 12-13 discuss options in setting up the cosmology for whether gods are dependent or independent of worshippers for their power and the behind the curtain sidebar for the default 3.0 setup (Greyhawk) says: "The deities of the D&D pantheon are independent of mortals for their power, though it’s clear that many use worshipers to augment their power. Deities such as Corellon Larethian, Garl Glittergold, Gruumsh, and Yondalla are deeply concerned with their worshipers and undoubtedly draw some power from them. Boccob is infamous for his indifference toward worshipers."

I feel the page 25 numbers of worshippers could be decent for their optional cosmologies of dependent gods where the numbers could represent direct power correlation, but they are a particularly poor match to Greyhawk where the greater gods have 1e-3e historically been noted for their remoteness and indifference and mostly there is no correlation to deity power.

1e WoG Boxed set page 62:

View attachment 145124

I agree, which leads to a problem for @Maxperson

He has insisted that the number of worshipers must matter for your power/status as a god.

Except for Forgotten Realms, where what really matters is AO saying you are a god.
And except for Greyhawk which specifically stated that it was exempt from these rules.
And except for Eberron which works entirely differently
And except for Dragonlance, which also works entirely differently.

So, it seems to be a rule set that was never actually applied to any official settings.

 

[Maxperson]

Or, how about it suddenly being the "DMs choice". That didn't seem to matter for... literally anything else we are discussing.

I know it's been a day or two, so you've probably forgotten that I said it was up to the DM to figure out which gods in Appendix B were quasi-deities.

You can't even read your own source. If you want to use this source and we have to suddenly shift from 3.5 rules to 5e rules to make all the intermediates into lessers then you have 17 greater gods and 116 "lesser gods" which ignores all of the "demigods"

10. 17. None of it matters. Greyhawk gods are apparently independent of worshippers, which screws poor Demigod Iuz. Not that anything came close to saying that much, let alone most of his empire worshipped him, but now even that doesn't matter.

 

[Chaosmancer]

I know it's been a day or two, so you've probably forgotten that I said it was up to the DM to figure out which gods in Appendix B were quasi-deities.

So now Corellon LArethian is a Quasi-Deity. Let's check the wiki's... nope. Never has been listed as a Quasi-Deity. Been a Greater Power since... forever. Literally every edition of the game.

So, if your point is "DMs can change anything!" Congrats. It's a nothing burger. If your point is to talk about the official deties in Greyhawk, then you count the Racial Deities that have always been part of greyhawk.

10. 17. None of it matters. Greyhawk gods are apparently independent of worshippers, which screws poor Demigod Iuz. Not that anything came close to saying that much, let alone most of his empire worshipped him, but now even that doesn't matter.

Sure, a error rate of 70% is nothing. People make those sort of mistakes all the time.


But hey, we have zero settings that follow the rules for "you need X number of worshipers to be Y power". It seems that despite that being the rules, no one followed it. So now, you can't claim "but they don't have enough worshipers to be a real god" Which... was sort of what I was trying to prove this whole time.

 

[Maxperson]

So now Corellon LArethian is a Quasi-Deity.

Nawp! Not what I said or implied.

You: You never said anything whatsoever about DMs choosing!!!

Me: I said DMs choose who the demigods are in Appendix B.

You: So you're saying Correlon is a quasi-deity.

C'mon man. Make at least a modicum of effort to understand the discussion.

Let's check the wiki's... nope. Never has been listed as a Quasi-Deity. Been a Greater Power since... forever. Literally every edition of the game.

And now it's a Strawman!!! You've changed what I said from "things I've said that DMs choose" to Correlon being a quasi-deity and then argued against your fictitious creation.

So, if your point is "DMs can change anything!"

Nawp! That wasn't what I said, either.

Sure, a error rate of 70% is nothing. People make those sort of mistakes all the time.

It is nothing. Like, literally nothing. 10. 17. 1700. 17 million. It doesn't matter how many there are for purposes of power coming from population, because it doesn't.

 

[Faolyn]

Nawp! Not what I said or implied.

You: You never said anything whatsoever about DMs choosing!!!

Me: I said DMs choose who the demigods are in Appendix B.

You: So you're saying Correlon is a quasi-deity.

C'mon man. Make at least a modicum of effort to understand the discussion.

At this point, do you honestly think they will?

 

[Chaosmancer]

Nawp! Not what I said or implied.

You: You never said anything whatsoever about DMs choosing!!!

Me: I said DMs choose who the demigods are in Appendix B.

You: So you're saying Correlon is a quasi-deity.

C'mon man. Make at least a modicum of effort to understand the discussion.

Non-sequiters aren't conducive to actually holding a conversation. Here is a more accurate summary, that you'll ignore anyways to continue insulting me and implying I'm arguing in bad faith.

C: You never said anything about DMs choosing which gods count as part of the setting

M: I said it was up to DMs to decide who in Appendix B were Quasi-Deities.

C: Is Corellon a quasi-Deity? No? Then what does this have to do with anything?

M: C'mon man. Make at least a modicum of effort to understand the discussion.



And actually, you've ALSO said that PLayers and DMs will have to reference older material to know who is really a quasi-deity and who isn't. So, they get to determine, but they also need to reference material to tell them, because 5e tells them that NONE of the 25+Racial gods of Greyhawk are Quasi-Deities. As seen by not a single one of them being listed or discussed as a demigod, vestige or Titan.

But hey, why let a thing like evidence prevent you from rampant strawman's and declaring the other side unable to follow a conversation.

And now it's a Strawman!!! You've changed what I said from "things I've said that DMs choose" to Correlon being a quasi-deity and then argued against your fictitious creation.

We were discussing racial dieties being part of Greyhawk. You suddenly stopped talking about that to say that DMs can decide who a quasi-diety is. It's like and the melting point of glass 1400 °C to 1600 °C, which is higher than the melting point of steel which is between 1371-1540 degrees Celsius, meaning that to create glass you usually need a catalyst to drop the melting point.

Which isn't a confusing way to have a conversation at all, right? Just suddenly switching to something completely unrelated for no reason.

It is nothing. Like, literally nothing. 10. 17. 1700. 17 million. It doesn't matter how many there are for purposes of power coming from population, because it doesn't.

Nice complete and total switch juuuust in time for massive math mistakes to not matter. Sure, you finally admit that the power of the gods of greyhawk isn't tied to their worship. However, in terms of "how many greater gods were in greyhawk" which you were incessantly badgering me about there was a number. Your source listed 17. You claimed 10. That is a massive error in the number of greater gods, which suddenly you think doesn't matter just because you realized that the rules you've been insisting were correct did not apply.

 

[Chaosmancer]

At this point, do you honestly think they will?

You know, if you are going to ignore me, that's fine. But drive-by snark and sarcasm at me gets tiresome. If you are going to ignore me, ignore me, don't take potshots at me from the sidelines of other people's conversations.

 

[Voadam]

I agree, which leads to a problem for @Maxperson

He has insisted that the number of worshipers must matter for your power/status as a god.

Except for Forgotten Realms, where what really matters is AO saying you are a god.
And except for Greyhawk which specifically stated that it was exempt from these rules.
And except for Eberron which works entirely differently
And except for Dragonlance, which also works entirely differently.

So, it seems to be a rule set that was never actually applied to any official settings.

The 3.0 DDG has the statement about number of worshipers and rank as a correlation, but not explicitly as a causation. The statement is separate from the discussion of god power.

It fits best with 3.0 FR, which has tied deity power with worshipers and could be a causation. Ao in Time of Troubles explicitly linked deities and worship and this continued in the 3.0 FR setting. Even if you say its Ao as a causation, that still can be a correlation.

It could apply to Greyhawk where gods do not get their power from worshipers. It would be an odd coincidence of correlation but it could apply. The 1e statement was that Greyhawk greater gods are worshipped but not many take them as patrons. Worship without patronage still implies worshiper and so it would be consistent with a situation where most people worship the greater gods and could be consistent with the 3.0 DDG.

Eberron was not created until 3.5, and I do not recall any specification of the status/rank of the theorized gods in the 3.5 Campaign Setting book or in Faiths of Eberron. You could take 3.0 DDG and assign divine ranks to them based on number of worshipers. Since they do not walk the world the divine rank under the 3.0 scheme does not interact with the mortal world in any way except the line between rank 0 quasi-deities who do not grant cleric spells and rank 1+ deities who do.

Dragonlance would be tough to get to work throughout its history due to things like the Cataclysm and 300 years of no or almost no worshipers world wide. However worship did come back with the war of the lance, and then there was stuff with the Saga system and mystics and gods coming and going. I am not entirely sure what the state of Dragonlance was at the 3.0 DDG time when Dragonlance was between Saga system and had not yet returned with the 3.5 Dragonlance setting book. Dragonlance 3.5 when it came out assigned the deities 3.0 DDG divine status categories (though not specific numerical divine ranks) like page 121 Branchala being an intermediate god, and on page 119 it references 3.0 DDG

"Game Statistics
This product doesn’t have the scope to address specific game statistics and divine powers for these deities. Use Deities & Demigods to create game statistics for the deities here if you desire such information."

So one could conceptually apply the 3.0 DDG statement on rank and worshiper numbers to the contemporary timeframe of Dragonlance and its tight pantheon of gods.

I feel it is a poor rule without much useful purpose and would lead to some odd results, but you could apply it to 3e WotC settings in a way that generally works.

 

[Maxperson]

Non-sequiters aren't conducive to actually holding a conversation.

It wasn't a non-sequitur. You said something that was false and I pointed out how you were wrong. You then twisted it into something that it wasn't.

C: You never said anything about DMs choosing which gods count as part of the setting

You never said this. You said, "Or, how about it suddenly being the "DMs choice". That didn't seem to matter for... literally anything else we are discussing."

Note the "literally anything else we are discussing" portion that brings everything we've been discussing into it.

M: I said it was up to DMs to decide who in Appendix B were Quasi-Deities.

Correct, since that's part of the "literally anything else we are discussing."

C: Is Corellon a quasi-Deity? No? Then what does this have to do with anything?

This is you trying to twist it into something else.

M: C'mon man. Make at least a modicum of effort to understand the discussion.

Correct, because unlike you, I was following the conversation.

And actually, you've ALSO said that PLayers and DMs will have to reference older material to know who is really a quasi-deity and who isn't. So, they get to determine, but they also need to reference material to tell them, because 5e tells them that NONE of the 25+Racial gods of Greyhawk are Quasi-Deities. As seen by not a single one of them being listed or discussed as a demigod, vestige or Titan.

So more of the "literally anything else we are discussing."

But hey, why let a thing like evidence prevent you from rampant strawman's and declaring the other side unable to follow a conversation.

Follow the conversation and don't engage in Strawmen if you don't want me to call you out on it.

 

[Chaosmancer]

It wasn't a non-sequitur. You said something that was false and I pointed out how you were wrong. You then twisted it into something that it wasn't.

You never said this. You said, "Or, how about it suddenly being the "DMs choice". That didn't seem to matter for... literally anything else we are discussing."

Note the "literally anything else we are discussing" portion that brings everything we've been discussing into it.

Hyperbole max. It was hyperbole because nothing else we were discussing before about which gods counted where ever fell back on "DM choice" until suddenly you were giving wrong numbers and justifying them with "but the DM could choose to exclude specific gods for any number of reasons"

Correct, since that's part of the "literally anything else we are discussing."

This is you trying to twist it into something else.

Correct, because unlike you, I was following the conversation.

So more of the "literally anything else we are discussing."

Follow the conversation and don't engage in Strawmen if you don't want me to call you out on it.

Oh boy, the egg on my face that at some point in a 49 page thread the subject of DM choice ever came up. Boy howdy, that certainly makes you suddenly not counting gods seem so reasonable.

You know, there is a trick in late middle school early high school, where as part of your answer you repeat part of the question. That technique would really help when you try and pull this sort of mood of pettily poking holes in a bit of hyperbole and then declaring someone else can't follow a discussion.