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The Role and Purpose of Evil Gods
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<blockquote data-quote="Levistus's_Leviathan" data-source="post: 8398906" data-attributes="member: 7023887"><p>. . . I don't know why these gods exist "historically", per se, and I can't say how the world and game-designers of these Gods in the earlier editions of D&D were thinking, but I do think that there's a reason for this.</p><p></p><p>The main one, to me, is that Demons, Devils, and other Fiends are distinct from Deities, at least historically. Demons and Devils are pure embodiments of their alignments, which makes them trend towards different behaviors, while Deities in D&D have more or less been on a "Made-God-Through-Worship" basis. Demons and Devils exist whether or not you believe they do. If you don't believe in a Demon, it's still going exist, and it's still going to murder you and everyone you love. Gods, on the other hand, work differently. <a href="https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/GodsNeedPrayerBadly" target="_blank">Gods in D&D need prayers badly.</a> If they don't have worshippers, they're not gods, and if they have more worshippers than other gods, they're more powerful because of it. Asmodeus will exist as the Lord of Nessus whether or not you believe or worship in him. His divinity, on the other hand, does rely on mortal worshippers, and that's where Archfiends and Deities diverge in-world in Dungeons and Dragons.</p><p></p><p>Some Archfiends in D&D have been explicitly stated to be Gods, such as Lolth and Asmodeus. Others haven't been (Baphomet, Orcus, Demogorgon, Levistus, Zariel, etc), and thus aren't Gods. There is overlap, in both what a god is and what their role is in the setting. Game designers in the earlier editions of D&D didn't really care at all about redundancy. That's why we have a ton of tricksy, typically evil Small monsters that come from basically the same roots in the folklore (Goblins, Kobolds, Xvarts, Boggles, etc). Redundancy wasn't really considred a problem back then, and got us into the place we are now for a lot of the "why do these things even exist" discussions/arguments that happen online about D&D. They exist because they originally served different defined-purposes and the creators of early D&D didn't care a smidge about redundancy.</p><p></p><p>[HR][/HR]</p><p>That said, I can definitely get on-board with getting rid of some of these redundancies in the game. In your homebrew world, you can just have your God of Chaotic Evil (Raids/Pillaging) War be a Demon Lord (Baphomet, Yeenoghu, or Demogorgon), and your God of Lawful Evil War (Conquest) be an Archdevil (Asmodeus). You can have your Archangels and Celestial Paragons be the Good gods (in my world, the redeemed Zariel is the Goddess of Justice), instead of having two different caste-systems for the exact same purpose. In my world, I have a God of Life/Souls (the Vistaesh), a God of Death/the Afterlife (the Raven Queen), and a God of Undeath/Necromancy (Vecna), and that's it. No race-specific gods of those portfolios, no redundant gods, archfiends, or archliches of the same concepts, and no nonsensical redundancies for the differences between a God and just super-powerful-entity. My gods are well-defined and observed to exist, but their divinity and right to be worshipped definitely isn't (who wants to worship a god of Undeath in the first place?!?! Vecna's trying to destroy the world!). (Also, in my world, there's different ways to maintain your godhood. The most common way is good-old worship and prayers, and enough of it can create gods, but there are other ways, like how Vecna maintains his divinity by feeding his Mega-Phylactery thousands of souls a day, and the sustenance of nature fuelling Ubtao as the God of Nature.)</p><p></p><p>So, yeah, there's really no purpose in having both Archfiends and Evil Gods if they're going to fulfill the same purpose in your world, and most worlds are better off without the redundancy, IMO. No need to have two things for the same purpose. It just makes it twice as hard to remember all their names and lore.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Levistus's_Leviathan, post: 8398906, member: 7023887"] . . . I don't know why these gods exist "historically", per se, and I can't say how the world and game-designers of these Gods in the earlier editions of D&D were thinking, but I do think that there's a reason for this. The main one, to me, is that Demons, Devils, and other Fiends are distinct from Deities, at least historically. Demons and Devils are pure embodiments of their alignments, which makes them trend towards different behaviors, while Deities in D&D have more or less been on a "Made-God-Through-Worship" basis. Demons and Devils exist whether or not you believe they do. If you don't believe in a Demon, it's still going exist, and it's still going to murder you and everyone you love. Gods, on the other hand, work differently. [URL='https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/GodsNeedPrayerBadly']Gods in D&D need prayers badly.[/URL] If they don't have worshippers, they're not gods, and if they have more worshippers than other gods, they're more powerful because of it. Asmodeus will exist as the Lord of Nessus whether or not you believe or worship in him. His divinity, on the other hand, does rely on mortal worshippers, and that's where Archfiends and Deities diverge in-world in Dungeons and Dragons. Some Archfiends in D&D have been explicitly stated to be Gods, such as Lolth and Asmodeus. Others haven't been (Baphomet, Orcus, Demogorgon, Levistus, Zariel, etc), and thus aren't Gods. There is overlap, in both what a god is and what their role is in the setting. Game designers in the earlier editions of D&D didn't really care at all about redundancy. That's why we have a ton of tricksy, typically evil Small monsters that come from basically the same roots in the folklore (Goblins, Kobolds, Xvarts, Boggles, etc). Redundancy wasn't really considred a problem back then, and got us into the place we are now for a lot of the "why do these things even exist" discussions/arguments that happen online about D&D. They exist because they originally served different defined-purposes and the creators of early D&D didn't care a smidge about redundancy. [HR][/HR] That said, I can definitely get on-board with getting rid of some of these redundancies in the game. In your homebrew world, you can just have your God of Chaotic Evil (Raids/Pillaging) War be a Demon Lord (Baphomet, Yeenoghu, or Demogorgon), and your God of Lawful Evil War (Conquest) be an Archdevil (Asmodeus). You can have your Archangels and Celestial Paragons be the Good gods (in my world, the redeemed Zariel is the Goddess of Justice), instead of having two different caste-systems for the exact same purpose. In my world, I have a God of Life/Souls (the Vistaesh), a God of Death/the Afterlife (the Raven Queen), and a God of Undeath/Necromancy (Vecna), and that's it. No race-specific gods of those portfolios, no redundant gods, archfiends, or archliches of the same concepts, and no nonsensical redundancies for the differences between a God and just super-powerful-entity. My gods are well-defined and observed to exist, but their divinity and right to be worshipped definitely isn't (who wants to worship a god of Undeath in the first place?!?! Vecna's trying to destroy the world!). (Also, in my world, there's different ways to maintain your godhood. The most common way is good-old worship and prayers, and enough of it can create gods, but there are other ways, like how Vecna maintains his divinity by feeding his Mega-Phylactery thousands of souls a day, and the sustenance of nature fuelling Ubtao as the God of Nature.) So, yeah, there's really no purpose in having both Archfiends and Evil Gods if they're going to fulfill the same purpose in your world, and most worlds are better off without the redundancy, IMO. No need to have two things for the same purpose. It just makes it twice as hard to remember all their names and lore. [/QUOTE]
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