D&D General The Role and Purpose of Evil Gods

[pemerton]

There are a lot of other explanations than "secretly some of these gods are actually Quasi-Deities, but we have no way of knowing whom"

Editing of RPG books is rarely perfect, especially ones with the scale and complexity of teamwork that is going on at WotC.

 

[Faolyn]

Iuz is not called out that way, though. And one instance of a demigod becoming a lesser god doesn't mean that they all did.

Except it's not just one god being called out.

In 2e and 3e, Gwaeron Windstrom, Valkur, Jergal, Hoar, Laogazed, Kiaransalee, the Red Knight, Urogalan, Haela Brightaxe, Deep Duerra, Shevarash, and Selvatarm were all demigods--and they all grant spells in 5e, which means that they are all at least lesser deities by 5e standards.

With Lurue being referenced in the DMG, and Iuz in the PH, that's fourteen examples of former demigods now being treated as full-fledged gods who are able to grant spells. The only thing unique about Iuz is that there haven't been any other Greyhawk demigods referenced--but as I said, there's over a hundred GH gods and only twenty are referenced at all. And frankly, most of the Greyhawk demigods are kinda dumb.

And all of the Lesser Idols in Exandria are given cleric domains in addition to appropriate warlock pacts.

And coupled with the DMG stating that demigod is basically a species (half-god, half-mortal), not a divine rank or level of power or what inevitably happens if a mortal undergoes apotheosis, I think that fourteen examples are enough to make it a fact: Iuz is a god in 5e, not a demigod.

 

[Maxperson]

In 2e and 3e, Gwaeron Windstrom, Valkur, Jergal, Hoar, Laogazed, Kiaransalee, the Red Knight, Urogalan, Haela Brightaxe, Deep Duerra, Shevarash, and Selvatarm were all demigods--and they all grant spells in 5e, which means that they are all at least lesser deities by 5e standards.

They all are on a list of gods that might possibly grant spells, yes. Nothing says that every god on that list absolutely grants spells. We know some of them don't. They just left which ones up to the DM.

With Lurue being referenced in the DMG, and Iuz in the PH, that's fourteen examples of former demigods now being treated as full-fledged gods who are able to grant spells. The only thing unique about Iuz is that there haven't been any other Greyhawk demigods referenced--but as I said, there's over a hundred GH gods and only twenty are referenced at all. And frankly, most of the Greyhawk demigods are kinda dumb.

No. It's 14 examples of demigods who might potentially have gotten promotions. That's up to the DM, since we know that some on that list cannot cast spells, despite having domains.

 

[Mirtek]

5e doesn't say that I don't think, unless it's in a module.

It's right in the DMG

Requires assuming the designers are too stupid to realize they cut out all of quasi-deities.

It's pretty normal that large multi-person manuals are choke full of reference to stuff that was later cut while the reference was forgotten. Not even speaking of infamous "Add sensible text here later" or "Cut before final print" stuff appearing in shipped versions of a lot of books

since we know that some on that list cannot cast spells, despite having domains.

Do we? Which ones? The Undying Court? Who says centuries of worship has not forged it into a gestalt lesser deity?

We know Vol isn't a deity, but she's just the spokesperson of clerics worshipping a philosophy really

 

[Chaosmancer]

Requires assuming the designers are too stupid to realize they cut out all of quasi-deities.

Changes in one part of the text not being fully realized in others isn't "stupidity" it is having multiple people working on different parts of a 300 page book and not having perfect communication.

Requires assuming that the designers are too stupid to realize that those Eberron options don't fit into any of the three categories of quasi-deities.

PHB came out three months before the DMG. It isn't stupidity if there was a last minute change to the DMG text. Or if the designers were worried that saying "gods and pantheons" would make people think you couldn't be an acolyte of something that wasn't a god.

Requires the designers to just be stupid in general.

No, it requires them to write "quasi-deities" to make sure that the player's are aware that demigods, titans, vestiges and other "not gods" are valid choices for an acolyte to have as their religion, without realizing that in a different section of the text that they are not personally writing, no one bothered to list those beings. Or that a design decision was made to not list them.

I prefer not to assume that the designers are stupid. The most likely option is that they just assume the DM will pick some to be quasi-deities.

For someone who doesn't want to assume the designers are stupid, you do sure seem to think that common mistakes and miscommunications that happen in any large scale project indicate full on stupidity.

Meanwhile, your position is that they wrote "quasi-deities in Appendix B" and then purposefully didn't label any Quasi-Deities, because DMs would just decide what that meant. For a player character's acolyte background. That frankly, makes no sense, because if they wanted certain Deities to be Quasi-Deities... why not label them as such, and then have the DMs decide if they DON'T want those beings to be Quasi-Deities.

 

[Chaosmancer]

They all are on a list of gods that might possibly grant spells, yes. Nothing says that every god on that list absolutely grants spells. We know some of them don't. They just left which ones up to the DM.

No. It's 14 examples of demigods who might potentially have gotten promotions. That's up to the DM, since we know that some on that list cannot cast spells, despite having domains.

I'm sorry, which of those 14 gods that Faolyn listed do we know can't grant spells? I'm not aware of any of them being listed in 5e as not being able to grant spells.

 

[Chaosmancer]

Do we? Which ones? The Undying Court? Who says centuries of worship has not forged it into a gestalt lesser deity?

We know Vol isn't a deity, but she's just the spokesperson of clerics worshipping a philosophy really

Also, if you look in the Eberron books, the Undying Court absolutely grants spells, and is considered as powerful as the Silver Flame on their island nation. The Silver Flame also not being a god.

The Blood of Vol is a philosophy about the divinity within and self-actualization. It also leads to clerics, famously there is a mummy cleric of the faith. Actually, in Exploring Eberron (which isn't canon but is written by Baker to explore more of the setting he created) he tackles the question of how to handle an Aasimar of the Blood of Vol, since the entire point is that you, yourself, are divine. The idea ends up being that the Angelic Guide for a Blood of Vol Aasimar is thought to be the divine version of yourself reaching back through time to guide you to apotheosis.

Honestly, I think the Blood of Vol is an absolutely FASCINATING religion. Especially with how the undead are seen as martyrs to the cause.

 

[Maxperson]

It's right in the DMG

You're right! It is! I didn't think he was named in the DMG, but when you said that I checked.

Page 63 of the 5e DMG.

"On Oerth (the sword-and-sorcery world of the Greyhawk setting), heroes such as Bigby and Mordenkainen are driven by greed or ambition. The hub of the region called the Flanaess is the Free City of Greyhawk, a city of scoundrels and archmagi, rife with adventure. An evil demigod, Iuz, rules a nightmarish realm in the north, threatening all civilization."

Hopefully this puts the debate to bed.

 

[Maxperson]

I'm sorry, which of those 14 gods that Faolyn listed do we know can't grant spells? I'm not aware of any of them being listed in 5e as not being able to grant spells.

The DMG explicitly says Iuz is a demigod.

 

[pemerton]

The DMG explicitly says Iuz is a demigod.

And what is more likely: that the 5e designers intended everyone using 5e to play Greyhawk games to retcon all their games so that Iuz no longer has clerics? Or that there was an editing error?