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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Levistus's_Leviathan" data-source="post: 8399797" data-attributes="member: 7023887">I know the purpose of this thread isn't really to debate these kinds of thing, but I did want to respond these points (not to convince you they're wrong or aren't the reason evil gods exist in D&D, because I'm sure the reasons you gave are fairly accurate for the designers'-motivations for making evil gods, but more because I want to show that there aren't really necessary). 1. "to give evil PC and NPC Clerics to pray to". I'm sure this is accurate, but I don't think it's a good reason, and I don't think it's necessary. First off, Fiend and Great Old One Warlocks are already a pretty big contrast to Good Clerics. Second, even if you do need specifically evil Clerics instead of Warlocks, you can just let some Demon Lord/Archdevil/other-Archfiend just be capable of having Cleric followers, like how Eberron and Exandria Clerics work (they get the power from the worship, not from the gods, so you can worship anything and get clerical power from that, without it being a god). 2. "to cancel out the good deities and thus keep the universe in balance". Again, I'm sure this is part of the reasoning behind the designers' creating the Evil Gods. However, wasn't that the purpose of the Devils in the first place (i.e. creating a plane of existence to punish the wicked)? That's a bit redundant, IMO. 3. "to give DMs a source of opposition for heroic-type PCs and-or a source of rivalry to the not-so-heroic types". Accurate, but also redundant. That's kind of the purpose of having stats for the Archfiends, even though most people don't get high enough level to actually take them on. 4. "because any society has its evil or undesirable aspects (death/disease) and a society's religion is going to reflect this". But (most) gods in D&D existed before cultures did. That's how the Primordials were overthrown and the Aboleth Empire was crushed. The Evil Deities are even explicitly stated to have existed back then, too (Bane being the first god to kill a Primordial). The evil gods existed before the religions worshipping them did. Gruumsh existed before the Orcs were created, after all.</blockquote>

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