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Message: <blockquote data-quote="DEFCON 1" data-source="post: 8399015" data-attributes="member: 7006">If we look at Theros, almost all their gods have their good and bad points, and the people who pray to them can have good and bad motivations for doing so.  Heliod is the self-proclaimed "leader" of the pantheon, and his portfolio is the sun, light, bravery, and self-sacrifice-- and the book has listed him as "lawful good".  However, the book also says he is a prideful and arrogant dick who thinks he should lead, if only the other gods would get on board... and he has gotten into fights with some of the other gods who won't submit to his rule.  Lawful Good?  Not really to me.  Likewise... Pharika is the God of Affliction, and her physical manifestation is that of a medusa.  The book lists her as Neutral Evil, because her portfolio includes poison, murder, disease and the like.  But at the same time, she is also the patron of all healers in Theros, and for every plant that can be used to create a poison, there is another one that can create a salve or antidote and she is good with all of them.  She is also the most scientifically connected god, which allows for innovation and discovery.  So why does the book say she is Neutral Evil?  Because assassins pray to her to help them kill people, and so boom... D&D tropes say she has to be evil-- despite half of her portfolio being all about "good" stuff?And this is true of almost every single god in Theros-- they all have their good points and their bad points.  The only god that is written as out-and-out evil is Mogis, the god of slaughter, violence, and war... who just happens to be the one whose physical form is a minotaur, the main "evil" humanoid race in the setting.  So once again... the "monsters" get pegged as default evil because reasons, and this god is given no redeeming qualities.  And for those minotaurs in Theros who aren't default "evil"?  They either do not worship Mogis, or have to twist their logic into a pretzel in order to have Mogis as their patron despite them being "good people" even though their god is the most evil S-O-B of the setting.  I find it all terribly stupid, and making little to no sense.So for my upcoming Theros game, I basically re-organized the portfolios of all the Theros gods... giving each and every one of them traits that would be considered good, and traits that would be considered bad.  For Mogis... I basically changed him from intense emotion to commit violence to intense emotion in general.  He is now the God of Zeal-- passion, love, comradeship, as well as bloodlust, violence and fury.  Intense love can lead to intense hate... the violence of war can produce a strength and bond between fellow soldiers... lust can be for both blood and physical passion.  People will pray and submit themselves to all of it, and Mogis is now the embodiment for all of it.  And it makes Mogis more likely to have actually devoted servants and people praising his name.</blockquote>

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