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<blockquote data-quote="Chaosmancer" data-source="post: 8408298" data-attributes="member: 6801228"><p>I will not apologize for trying to keep the record straight.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>The part that doesn't make sense is being told that all settings are homebrew, so we can't discuss them, but that the Realms are the baseline of the core game. </p><p></p><p>As for the FR pantheons... all of them? Do you think control over the fundamental nature of Truth isn't something that the various gods would fight and kill over, since they fight and kill over the idea of Murder? These aren't minor concepts.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>I don't think Vecna is a meta-textual entity that is participating in the writing of DnD rulebooks. So, if you are trying to say that every writer has been misunderstanding Vecna's portfolio... well, the fact that it has been every writer kind of means that they didn't.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>And that has nothing to do with the debate. The debate is about the effect on the cosmic order and how that order changed with the apotheosis of a new deity. The personality of the gods involved doesn't matter at all.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>See, now this is something worth discussing. </p><p></p><p>Let's take Chauntea and Silvanus and make up a new ascending diety named Pistil. </p><p></p><p>Now, according to Maxperson's assertion, the cosmic order is maintained by the gods, and they have portfolios. Chauntea is in charge of agriculture, the growing of things by civilization with a purpose, and Silvanus is in charge of wild nature. </p><p></p><p>Let us say that Pistil ascends and becomes the Goddess of Flowers. Now, here is the kicker. Flowers are things that people cultivate as part of agriculture. They are also part of wild nature. This would mean that Pistil's portfolio was part of two different deity's portfolios. </p><p></p><p>Now, to me, that reads like a change in the cosmic order. Things that were under the control of Chauntea and Silvanus are now under the control of a third party who was not originally part of the cosmic order. The Cosmic order has changed, which Maxperson claims doesn't happen, because their claim is that the portfolio of "flowers" was unclaimed and therefore no one was in charge of it. (of course even that would be a change in the cosmic order, but that feels a little nitpicky)</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>You are misunderstanding. I'm saying that Cuthbert changed the cosmic order by taking control of "honesty" which was likely part of the purview of Heironeous, since he was the God of Paladins and Paladins are super big into Honesty. </p><p></p><p>Or, are you trying to claim that Heironeous cared absolutely nothing for Honesty, and that portfolio was just floating in the aether untended and uncared for? </p><p></p><p>I am not, never will, and never have claimed that Heironeous and St. Cuthbert are the same god. They aren't. The entire point is that St, Cuthbert became a god, and changed the cosmic order when he did so.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>No. </p><p></p><p>You asked "now what". Well, if the question being discussed is over, the discussion is over. I've never been interested in how people address the redundancies, my entire goal in this discussion has been to show that they exist. </p><p></p><p>You want to keep jumping into debating me on homebrew solutions, but that goes beyond the question being discussed. You want to say that I shouldn't get rid of, or I shouldn't remove, or all of these other things because you keep assuming I am pushing some sort of agenda. </p><p></p><p></p><p>Here is what I am pushing. The Archfiends and the Evil Gods are redundant. The Evil Gods have no role and purpose that cannot be filled by Archfiends of similar styles. </p><p></p><p>That's it. I'm not arguing we should get rid of evil gods (I did, I think that makes the most sense, but that is for my personal homebrew) I'm not arguing that redundancy is bad (I think it is for me, it ends up causing confusion and unfocuses the narrative elements) the only thing I am trying to do is demonstrate that the redundancy exists.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Did you read the title of the thread? "The <strong><em>Role and Purpose</em></strong> of Evil Gods" not "Evil Gods in DnD". If we have determined that their role and purpose is identical to the role and purpose of Archfiends, just being the enemies of good, then there is little more to discuss. </p><p></p><p>But, you want to know what I did for my homebrew? </p><p></p><p>First thing I did was make all of the pantheon's racial pantheons. There are no inter-racial gods. In part, I did this because those "inter-racial" gods were just human gods. I got a little sick of seeing "humans have no gods of war, they just worship THE god of War." It felt a little too much like a privileged view point.</p><p></p><p>I then removed all gods of nature, because that is the realm of the Primal Spirits and potentially the Fey, which is why the druids and rangers exist. Then I removed all the gods of magic, because magic is a fundamental part of reality and no god has a claim over it. This also means I don't have to deal with the question of why enemies of the gods can use magic, no one is in charge of magic, so everyone can use it (and attempting to become a god of magic probably erases you from existence or something, it is impossible in my setting) </p><p></p><p>After that I started trying to make each pantheon distinct. </p><p></p><p>[SPOILER="Dwarves"]</p><p>For the Dwarves I really only have two gods, Moradin and his wife, Berronar Truesilver. She wasn't a goddess originally, but a primal spirit that Moradin fell in love with. In his attempts to woo her, he created the Firstborn dwarves, infusing them with his divine spark these dwarves are demigods I think, but I haven't had too much focus on them. </p><p></p><p>They are Helija Bladeringer, Tordexk Axe-Shaper, Drurakal Vaultbuilder, Jarana Stonebrewer, Nordak Foesmiter, Uram Orefnider, Yurgun Diamondquill, Anbera Ringgiver. Each one of them was famous for a great work or for being the first dwarf to do a thing. They also gave birth to the "true dwarves" since they are not quite dwarves themselves. </p><p></p><p>Then I have "saints" which is a bit of a misnomer as I note in my setting notes. They are more like folk heroes and folk villains who achieved a semi-divine state by doing something incredibly notable or terrible, and activated the divine spark placed in them by Moradin's creation of the First Born. It is a bit of a thing in Dwarven culture that everyone can achieve perfection and become a saint to be closer to Moradin. Bit of a catholic saint inspiration. </p><p></p><p>Notable Dwarven saints include: Dumathoin The Silent Keeper, Gorm The Brother of Battle, Abbathor The Trove Lord, Riswynn The Gilded Lady, Sharendlar The Last Light, Laduguer The Grim Sentinel, Clanguddin The Merry Lord, and Shiallia The First Light. Some of them have stories, some don't yet. It is a work in progress. [/SPOILER]</p><p></p><p>[SPOILER="Elves"]For Elves, I went a slightly different route. The Gods were heroes who acheived divinity, as they aided the elves in escaping from the Nightmare Court of the Feywild, where they had been hunted like animals since the dawn of their species. This has gone through a few rewrites, but mainly I have four beings here, Corellon of Larethian, The First Star and the leader of the Elven people, Sehanine Moonbow, The Lady of Dreams who has done just all the various magical protections on the elves, Solonor Keen-Eye, the Great Archer whose role is much more subdued but vitally important, and Aurshanee, the Weaver of Fate, who helped aid the elves and tied them with the Giant spiders which have become a major part of their culture. </p><p></p><p>After that, I have the idea of them worshipping hero-kings and Queens, using the idea of them being "stars" as part of it, but I haven't fully developed the idea yet. [/SPOILER]</p><p></p><p>[SPOILER="Humans"]For Humans, like I said, I took a lot of the "generic gods" and just made them human gods. Humans have A LOT of gods though. I think I'm still working with 13 major gods and then hundreds of minor gods. Think Hinduism or Shinto to a degree. Most of the major gods have ties to the various parts of society. So, The Iron Lord is bit of a take on Bane, but more Lawful Neutral and the nominal leader of the gods and the head of war. He is opposed somewhat by Arveene The Unbroken, a mortal who became a goddess in defiance of The Iron Lords cruel tactics in trying to preserve humanity. The Raven Queen is in charge of the souls of the dead. Shar is the Lady of Loss and Mourning, and assisted by El the Preserving Path. Oghma is the god of scholars, Loviatar is Mistress of Pain and embodies the belief that pain is a teacher. Waukeen is the goddess of trade still, my notes are all scattered, but this should give you an idea.</p><p></p><p>One big point is that the Tielfings are human, who during the great war that destroyed the human's previous world took power from Asmodeus. The gods had retreated into a council to determine what to do, but the people of one of the frontline kingdoms felt abandoned. They turned to the Devil's power to protect their people. Later the Gods returned to the fight, but the retreat of humanity from that world would have been impossible without a group of Tieflings known as the Lost Legion, who held the rear.</p><p></p><p>This has led to a debate between the various groups over the tieflings. Some of the Tielfings feel guilty for doubting the gods. Other feel they were justified and worship the Lost Legion and their bravery. It is a complicated matter[/SPOILER]</p><p></p><p>And it goes on and on</p><p></p><p>But briefly</p><p></p><p>[SPOILER="Demons, Devils, ect"]</p><p>Demons are embodiments of hunger and destruction forming in the Abyss and eventually taking over entire lairs of the infinite wound. The various Demon Lords have favorite feeding grounds that affect their abilities and dispostions. Demogorgon the Far Realms, Orcus the Shadowfell, Yeenoghu the Material Plane, Vaprak once snuck into the Celestial Realms, Graz'zt the Feywild, ect. </p><p></p><p>Devils all work in a unified plan. Asmodeus is sometimes thought to be the first being to have made a deal, and this is the source of his original power. But he had a plan, and that plan involved giving up his "true" body (Nessus) and forming nine realms. His first recruit was Zariel, who became the Lady of the First. I could go into each of the Nine's origins, some are more filled out than others, but the big thing was that the Nine are a meritocracy. As part of that, each of the realms of Baator has a control stone. A fiend or mortal who gets that stone is allowed to fight the ruler of that realm for control and dominance of that realm. That is how Levistus was killed and the new Lady of the Fifth Tana was installed. </p><p></p><p>Most GOOs are the endlings of their realities, traveling through the Far Realms and seeking to dominate, corrupt, and conquer this reality as they did their originals.</p><p>[/SPOILER]</p><p></p><p></p><p>So, now that I've talked a lot about my homebrew, do you feel better?</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Chaosmancer, post: 8408298, member: 6801228"] I will not apologize for trying to keep the record straight. The part that doesn't make sense is being told that all settings are homebrew, so we can't discuss them, but that the Realms are the baseline of the core game. As for the FR pantheons... all of them? Do you think control over the fundamental nature of Truth isn't something that the various gods would fight and kill over, since they fight and kill over the idea of Murder? These aren't minor concepts. I don't think Vecna is a meta-textual entity that is participating in the writing of DnD rulebooks. So, if you are trying to say that every writer has been misunderstanding Vecna's portfolio... well, the fact that it has been every writer kind of means that they didn't. And that has nothing to do with the debate. The debate is about the effect on the cosmic order and how that order changed with the apotheosis of a new deity. The personality of the gods involved doesn't matter at all. See, now this is something worth discussing. Let's take Chauntea and Silvanus and make up a new ascending diety named Pistil. Now, according to Maxperson's assertion, the cosmic order is maintained by the gods, and they have portfolios. Chauntea is in charge of agriculture, the growing of things by civilization with a purpose, and Silvanus is in charge of wild nature. Let us say that Pistil ascends and becomes the Goddess of Flowers. Now, here is the kicker. Flowers are things that people cultivate as part of agriculture. They are also part of wild nature. This would mean that Pistil's portfolio was part of two different deity's portfolios. Now, to me, that reads like a change in the cosmic order. Things that were under the control of Chauntea and Silvanus are now under the control of a third party who was not originally part of the cosmic order. The Cosmic order has changed, which Maxperson claims doesn't happen, because their claim is that the portfolio of "flowers" was unclaimed and therefore no one was in charge of it. (of course even that would be a change in the cosmic order, but that feels a little nitpicky) You are misunderstanding. I'm saying that Cuthbert changed the cosmic order by taking control of "honesty" which was likely part of the purview of Heironeous, since he was the God of Paladins and Paladins are super big into Honesty. Or, are you trying to claim that Heironeous cared absolutely nothing for Honesty, and that portfolio was just floating in the aether untended and uncared for? I am not, never will, and never have claimed that Heironeous and St. Cuthbert are the same god. They aren't. The entire point is that St, Cuthbert became a god, and changed the cosmic order when he did so. No. You asked "now what". Well, if the question being discussed is over, the discussion is over. I've never been interested in how people address the redundancies, my entire goal in this discussion has been to show that they exist. You want to keep jumping into debating me on homebrew solutions, but that goes beyond the question being discussed. You want to say that I shouldn't get rid of, or I shouldn't remove, or all of these other things because you keep assuming I am pushing some sort of agenda. Here is what I am pushing. The Archfiends and the Evil Gods are redundant. The Evil Gods have no role and purpose that cannot be filled by Archfiends of similar styles. That's it. I'm not arguing we should get rid of evil gods (I did, I think that makes the most sense, but that is for my personal homebrew) I'm not arguing that redundancy is bad (I think it is for me, it ends up causing confusion and unfocuses the narrative elements) the only thing I am trying to do is demonstrate that the redundancy exists. Did you read the title of the thread? "The [B][I]Role and Purpose[/I][/B] of Evil Gods" not "Evil Gods in DnD". If we have determined that their role and purpose is identical to the role and purpose of Archfiends, just being the enemies of good, then there is little more to discuss. But, you want to know what I did for my homebrew? First thing I did was make all of the pantheon's racial pantheons. There are no inter-racial gods. In part, I did this because those "inter-racial" gods were just human gods. I got a little sick of seeing "humans have no gods of war, they just worship THE god of War." It felt a little too much like a privileged view point. I then removed all gods of nature, because that is the realm of the Primal Spirits and potentially the Fey, which is why the druids and rangers exist. Then I removed all the gods of magic, because magic is a fundamental part of reality and no god has a claim over it. This also means I don't have to deal with the question of why enemies of the gods can use magic, no one is in charge of magic, so everyone can use it (and attempting to become a god of magic probably erases you from existence or something, it is impossible in my setting) After that I started trying to make each pantheon distinct. [SPOILER="Dwarves"] For the Dwarves I really only have two gods, Moradin and his wife, Berronar Truesilver. She wasn't a goddess originally, but a primal spirit that Moradin fell in love with. In his attempts to woo her, he created the Firstborn dwarves, infusing them with his divine spark these dwarves are demigods I think, but I haven't had too much focus on them. They are Helija Bladeringer, Tordexk Axe-Shaper, Drurakal Vaultbuilder, Jarana Stonebrewer, Nordak Foesmiter, Uram Orefnider, Yurgun Diamondquill, Anbera Ringgiver. Each one of them was famous for a great work or for being the first dwarf to do a thing. They also gave birth to the "true dwarves" since they are not quite dwarves themselves. Then I have "saints" which is a bit of a misnomer as I note in my setting notes. They are more like folk heroes and folk villains who achieved a semi-divine state by doing something incredibly notable or terrible, and activated the divine spark placed in them by Moradin's creation of the First Born. It is a bit of a thing in Dwarven culture that everyone can achieve perfection and become a saint to be closer to Moradin. Bit of a catholic saint inspiration. Notable Dwarven saints include: Dumathoin The Silent Keeper, Gorm The Brother of Battle, Abbathor The Trove Lord, Riswynn The Gilded Lady, Sharendlar The Last Light, Laduguer The Grim Sentinel, Clanguddin The Merry Lord, and Shiallia The First Light. Some of them have stories, some don't yet. It is a work in progress. [/SPOILER] [SPOILER="Elves"]For Elves, I went a slightly different route. The Gods were heroes who acheived divinity, as they aided the elves in escaping from the Nightmare Court of the Feywild, where they had been hunted like animals since the dawn of their species. This has gone through a few rewrites, but mainly I have four beings here, Corellon of Larethian, The First Star and the leader of the Elven people, Sehanine Moonbow, The Lady of Dreams who has done just all the various magical protections on the elves, Solonor Keen-Eye, the Great Archer whose role is much more subdued but vitally important, and Aurshanee, the Weaver of Fate, who helped aid the elves and tied them with the Giant spiders which have become a major part of their culture. After that, I have the idea of them worshipping hero-kings and Queens, using the idea of them being "stars" as part of it, but I haven't fully developed the idea yet. [/SPOILER] [SPOILER="Humans"]For Humans, like I said, I took a lot of the "generic gods" and just made them human gods. Humans have A LOT of gods though. I think I'm still working with 13 major gods and then hundreds of minor gods. Think Hinduism or Shinto to a degree. Most of the major gods have ties to the various parts of society. So, The Iron Lord is bit of a take on Bane, but more Lawful Neutral and the nominal leader of the gods and the head of war. He is opposed somewhat by Arveene The Unbroken, a mortal who became a goddess in defiance of The Iron Lords cruel tactics in trying to preserve humanity. The Raven Queen is in charge of the souls of the dead. Shar is the Lady of Loss and Mourning, and assisted by El the Preserving Path. Oghma is the god of scholars, Loviatar is Mistress of Pain and embodies the belief that pain is a teacher. Waukeen is the goddess of trade still, my notes are all scattered, but this should give you an idea. One big point is that the Tielfings are human, who during the great war that destroyed the human's previous world took power from Asmodeus. The gods had retreated into a council to determine what to do, but the people of one of the frontline kingdoms felt abandoned. They turned to the Devil's power to protect their people. Later the Gods returned to the fight, but the retreat of humanity from that world would have been impossible without a group of Tieflings known as the Lost Legion, who held the rear. This has led to a debate between the various groups over the tieflings. Some of the Tielfings feel guilty for doubting the gods. Other feel they were justified and worship the Lost Legion and their bravery. It is a complicated matter[/SPOILER] And it goes on and on But briefly [SPOILER="Demons, Devils, ect"] Demons are embodiments of hunger and destruction forming in the Abyss and eventually taking over entire lairs of the infinite wound. The various Demon Lords have favorite feeding grounds that affect their abilities and dispostions. Demogorgon the Far Realms, Orcus the Shadowfell, Yeenoghu the Material Plane, Vaprak once snuck into the Celestial Realms, Graz'zt the Feywild, ect. Devils all work in a unified plan. Asmodeus is sometimes thought to be the first being to have made a deal, and this is the source of his original power. But he had a plan, and that plan involved giving up his "true" body (Nessus) and forming nine realms. His first recruit was Zariel, who became the Lady of the First. I could go into each of the Nine's origins, some are more filled out than others, but the big thing was that the Nine are a meritocracy. As part of that, each of the realms of Baator has a control stone. A fiend or mortal who gets that stone is allowed to fight the ruler of that realm for control and dominance of that realm. That is how Levistus was killed and the new Lady of the Fifth Tana was installed. Most GOOs are the endlings of their realities, traveling through the Far Realms and seeking to dominate, corrupt, and conquer this reality as they did their originals. [/SPOILER] So, now that I've talked a lot about my homebrew, do you feel better? [/QUOTE]
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