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The Role and Purpose of Evil Gods
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<blockquote data-quote="Faolyn" data-source="post: 8411703" data-attributes="member: 6915329"><p>Sure, OK, let's focus on this.</p><p></p><p>For starters, gods generally don't show up on the prime (except during the Time of Troubles, when they were banished there). They send servitors. Archfiends <em>can </em>show up in person. This means you can literally has Orcus (or an aspect of Orcus) in your game without having the players plane shift. (Also, archfiends have stats, so they can be killed.) Sure, killing an archfiend on the Prime doesn't <em>destroy </em>it, but it prevents that fiend from reappearing on the Prime for a good long while, and that's just as sweet a victory. Demons and I believe devils both have soul-amulets, so if your high-level PCs felt really ambitious you could have adventures involving finding and destroying an archfiend's amulet and thus actually killing the archfiend.</p><p></p><p>Gods have temples are are more widely accepted. Fiendish cults are usually kept hidden. Thus, stories involving gods will usually take place out in the open, while cults are going to be sneaky and understated. If the High Council are all worshipers of Iuz, they're all going to have his holy symbol around their neck and they are going to be openly evil, or at least fine with evil. If the High Council are all worshipers of Titivalus, they're going to keep that a secret. Finding out this secret and revealing it--and ensuring those you reveal it to aren't <em>also </em>worshipers of Titvalus--will be an adventure in and of itself.</p><p></p><p>If you have a city where worship of a particular evil god is outlawed (in Waterdeep, it's illegal to build temples to Talona), you can have a more political story where priests of that god are trying to get the religion accepted. The story can be, Waterdeep has suddenly reversed that decision and a temple to Talona is being built. Everyone wants to know why. It's up to you plucky adventurers to find out. It could be something as simple as bribes or something darker like mind control or even murder-and-replacement. But it's really hard to imagine this plot going on with worshipers of Geryon or Zuggtmoy.</p><p></p><p>With archfiends, you get into things such as soul contracts, which you don't have with gods. You can also make deals with archfiends for power, including various fiendish boons. Sure, by RAW, a PC can suddenly decide to take a level of cleric or warlock, but many DMs are going to require that the PCs justify that multiclassing in some way.</p><p></p><p>Now, one adventure type both gods and archfiends will create is when the PC has to go on a quest for their power. The main difference is that with a god, the PC will be asked or commanded by the priest (or through a dream), while the archfiend may send an actual minion to do the "asking," if it doesn't show up in person.</p><p></p><p>Archfiends often try to pervert other religions (good, neutral, and evil ones alike), either making a mockery of the faith's beliefs or introducing fiendish influences. This means you can have adventures where you find out that a local religion is starting to turn to the dark side. Evil gods generally don't try to get their worshipers to pervert other religions in this way--they're more into forced conversions or outright killing the nonbelievers. </p><p></p><p>You can also introduce fun moral dilemmas such as, worshipers of Yeenoghu are corrupting a temple to Malar. Malar's priests are evil and chaotic, but also have <em>something </em>akin to a social structure and rules (they won't kill the young or pregnant), whereas Yeenoghu's worshipers will murder everyone <em>and </em>may also spread Yeenoghu's insanity (that's not RAW, but it's fairly reasonable to homebrew that idea, especially when MTF had a sidenote of a person mind-reading a gnoll and because of that, slowly going mad and becoming a cultist of Yeenoghu). Do you help the Malar worshipers, fight them both, or let them duke it out on their own and hope that their fight doesn't harm innocents?</p><p></p><p>Gods are sort of part of the world. Even the evil ones are kind of necessary for the world to keep turning, in some way, because what they represent is already an aspect of the world. Sure, some of them are awful, but they're kind of awful in the way that things like parasites or forest fires are awful, but also useful in a way, even if it's not a way that most mortals can easily see. </p><p></p><p>But archfiends are more like cancer, doing horrible things to a world that they're not part of. Hyenas would just be animals if Yeenoghu hadn't turned them into nearly mindless and monstrously bloodthirsty gnolls. Fungi are needed to recycle dead things so that the living can continue to exist. Zuggtmoy's fungi are corruptions of this, turning a much-needed organism into monsters that do no good. Undead would likely be limited to what were created by mortal wizards or to ghosts of those who can't pass on if Orcus hasn't decided to start turning them into creatures that prey on the living.</p><p></p><p>What this means is that you can have plenty of adventures involving an archfiend's evilness affecting an area, and the PCs have to deal with it. While by RAW these are regional effects around the archfiend's lair, you can also use them as the after effects of their cults (a bit of the archfiend's power is imbued in the cult's altar, perhaps), especially if its a powerful one. 3x had the "Corrupted Creature" monster template for just such a event. But outside of the <em>hallow </em>spell, few people assume that anything unusual happens around a temple to a currently-worshiped god, even if the temple has artifacts in it or bits of dead saint or whatever. It's holy (or unholy) ground, but other than that, not too much happens beyond a few more or less undead.</p><p></p><p>And then, of course, there's the "the archfiend's cult is trying to turn their patron into a full god; you have to stop it."</p><p></p><p>Stepping off the Prime, there's the Blood War, which allows any number of war-based adventures: fighting in it, trying to prevent an arm of the War from affecting a particular place, aiding or hindering one side, and so forth. There's also fiendish coups, where you can prevent (or help) one archfiend from taking over another one's.</p><p></p><p>Petitioners in a god's domain <em>want </em>to be there, because the ultimate goal for a petitioner is to merge with the god's domain and therefore the god. The souls that an archfiend has almost certainly don't; in fact, they probably have souls that don't deserve to be in Hell or the Abyss. Adventurers can try rescue those souls. Archfiends also have more use for <em>living </em>beings than gods have (as minions, servitors, or slaves, mostly), who primarily use the living as proxies (as per Planescape). Thus, you can rescue living beings who are being held by or are working for archfiends. </p><p></p><p>In addition to the Blood War, archfiends fight amongst each other for other reasons. These battles might spill out to other planes, including the Prime, and do so far more often than with god vs. god battles. The PCs can fight one or both fiends (and their cults) at the same time. </p><p></p><p>So, that enough possible plots?</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Faolyn, post: 8411703, member: 6915329"] Sure, OK, let's focus on this. For starters, gods generally don't show up on the prime (except during the Time of Troubles, when they were banished there). They send servitors. Archfiends [I]can [/I]show up in person. This means you can literally has Orcus (or an aspect of Orcus) in your game without having the players plane shift. (Also, archfiends have stats, so they can be killed.) Sure, killing an archfiend on the Prime doesn't [I]destroy [/I]it, but it prevents that fiend from reappearing on the Prime for a good long while, and that's just as sweet a victory. Demons and I believe devils both have soul-amulets, so if your high-level PCs felt really ambitious you could have adventures involving finding and destroying an archfiend's amulet and thus actually killing the archfiend. Gods have temples are are more widely accepted. Fiendish cults are usually kept hidden. Thus, stories involving gods will usually take place out in the open, while cults are going to be sneaky and understated. If the High Council are all worshipers of Iuz, they're all going to have his holy symbol around their neck and they are going to be openly evil, or at least fine with evil. If the High Council are all worshipers of Titivalus, they're going to keep that a secret. Finding out this secret and revealing it--and ensuring those you reveal it to aren't [I]also [/I]worshipers of Titvalus--will be an adventure in and of itself. If you have a city where worship of a particular evil god is outlawed (in Waterdeep, it's illegal to build temples to Talona), you can have a more political story where priests of that god are trying to get the religion accepted. The story can be, Waterdeep has suddenly reversed that decision and a temple to Talona is being built. Everyone wants to know why. It's up to you plucky adventurers to find out. It could be something as simple as bribes or something darker like mind control or even murder-and-replacement. But it's really hard to imagine this plot going on with worshipers of Geryon or Zuggtmoy. With archfiends, you get into things such as soul contracts, which you don't have with gods. You can also make deals with archfiends for power, including various fiendish boons. Sure, by RAW, a PC can suddenly decide to take a level of cleric or warlock, but many DMs are going to require that the PCs justify that multiclassing in some way. Now, one adventure type both gods and archfiends will create is when the PC has to go on a quest for their power. The main difference is that with a god, the PC will be asked or commanded by the priest (or through a dream), while the archfiend may send an actual minion to do the "asking," if it doesn't show up in person. Archfiends often try to pervert other religions (good, neutral, and evil ones alike), either making a mockery of the faith's beliefs or introducing fiendish influences. This means you can have adventures where you find out that a local religion is starting to turn to the dark side. Evil gods generally don't try to get their worshipers to pervert other religions in this way--they're more into forced conversions or outright killing the nonbelievers. You can also introduce fun moral dilemmas such as, worshipers of Yeenoghu are corrupting a temple to Malar. Malar's priests are evil and chaotic, but also have [I]something [/I]akin to a social structure and rules (they won't kill the young or pregnant), whereas Yeenoghu's worshipers will murder everyone [I]and [/I]may also spread Yeenoghu's insanity (that's not RAW, but it's fairly reasonable to homebrew that idea, especially when MTF had a sidenote of a person mind-reading a gnoll and because of that, slowly going mad and becoming a cultist of Yeenoghu). Do you help the Malar worshipers, fight them both, or let them duke it out on their own and hope that their fight doesn't harm innocents? Gods are sort of part of the world. Even the evil ones are kind of necessary for the world to keep turning, in some way, because what they represent is already an aspect of the world. Sure, some of them are awful, but they're kind of awful in the way that things like parasites or forest fires are awful, but also useful in a way, even if it's not a way that most mortals can easily see. But archfiends are more like cancer, doing horrible things to a world that they're not part of. Hyenas would just be animals if Yeenoghu hadn't turned them into nearly mindless and monstrously bloodthirsty gnolls. Fungi are needed to recycle dead things so that the living can continue to exist. Zuggtmoy's fungi are corruptions of this, turning a much-needed organism into monsters that do no good. Undead would likely be limited to what were created by mortal wizards or to ghosts of those who can't pass on if Orcus hasn't decided to start turning them into creatures that prey on the living. What this means is that you can have plenty of adventures involving an archfiend's evilness affecting an area, and the PCs have to deal with it. While by RAW these are regional effects around the archfiend's lair, you can also use them as the after effects of their cults (a bit of the archfiend's power is imbued in the cult's altar, perhaps), especially if its a powerful one. 3x had the "Corrupted Creature" monster template for just such a event. But outside of the [I]hallow [/I]spell, few people assume that anything unusual happens around a temple to a currently-worshiped god, even if the temple has artifacts in it or bits of dead saint or whatever. It's holy (or unholy) ground, but other than that, not too much happens beyond a few more or less undead. And then, of course, there's the "the archfiend's cult is trying to turn their patron into a full god; you have to stop it." Stepping off the Prime, there's the Blood War, which allows any number of war-based adventures: fighting in it, trying to prevent an arm of the War from affecting a particular place, aiding or hindering one side, and so forth. There's also fiendish coups, where you can prevent (or help) one archfiend from taking over another one's. Petitioners in a god's domain [I]want [/I]to be there, because the ultimate goal for a petitioner is to merge with the god's domain and therefore the god. The souls that an archfiend has almost certainly don't; in fact, they probably have souls that don't deserve to be in Hell or the Abyss. Adventurers can try rescue those souls. Archfiends also have more use for [I]living [/I]beings than gods have (as minions, servitors, or slaves, mostly), who primarily use the living as proxies (as per Planescape). Thus, you can rescue living beings who are being held by or are working for archfiends. In addition to the Blood War, archfiends fight amongst each other for other reasons. These battles might spill out to other planes, including the Prime, and do so far more often than with god vs. god battles. The PCs can fight one or both fiends (and their cults) at the same time. So, that enough possible plots? [/QUOTE]
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