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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Faolyn" data-source="post: 8413723" data-attributes="member: 6915329">In over a week's worth of discussion, many, many rules have been posted from the various editions showing how archfiends and gods are different. There is never going to be a single consistent rule because we're dealing with scores of different sources written over five editions. You are demanding the impossible and refusing to except what actually has been shown.And this is showing that you either don't know or don't care about the differences that other people have between gods and archfiends. In probably most games, and certainly in the base game, gods don't require contracts. The fact that you can imagine such a thing doesn't change the base expectation.And that's not even a Planescape thing. It's a "stands to reason" thing--if you're fine with using them, then I can use them two. Two reasons. One, if gods are dependent on belief, then human beliefs are going to change them. The fact that in the Realms one god impersonated another one without any dire changes is less about how gods work and more about the writers wanting to keep the Status Quo--if only because it would be difficult (especially in the more rules-heavy editions when the impersonations took place) to get across the idea that two faiths were merging into one in a series of game books and adventures. Heck, if the writers tried to use the idea of a god being changed by mortal belief in 3x, they'd probably have to have lists involving number of worshipers involved and the percentage change that there would be an effect and what the save DC is to avoid it.And two, because the gods in question (Shar, wasn't it?) weren't trying to corrupt other religions. They were taking over, or using them to hide. If anything, this was the god trying to grab onto more portfolios.Yes, I think Nerull and Erythnul care about people. Not as people or as individuals, but as status symbols, or as income, or as food. They care about people in the same way that a farmer cares about livestock. Even the worst farmers who warehouse all their animals in horrible conditions don't want them to all die unnecessarily. There are certainly some gods who don't care or encourage their worshipers to kill each other, but they're likely not very smart, or are confident that they have enough worshipers to sustain them anyway. Or they managed to grab onto some other source of power.I had never applied the Planescape model to Eberron. In fact, I have pointed out at least once before that Eberron isn't connected to Planescape at all.I don't think you're a liar. I think you really believe that you are telling people that they're redundant and nothing else. But maybe you're just not as good at writing that sort of nuance, because you've been saying that it's wrong. Wrong for me to assign gods the way I do. Wrong for people to have more than one faction because the factions will feel "flatter and less interesting." You haven't used the word "wrong," but everything you've been writing has been saying it anyway.  For instance, you say:And you think you're saying "use either." But what you're actually saying is "don't use both. Pick red or yellow, but only one of those--and don't even think about using orange."If you prefer having a setting where there's only evil gods or only archfiends, that's fine, that's for you. And I can easily see a setting where there's only one of the two. But you're not saying "I prefer." You're not even saying "if you pick only one, you get these benefits that you wouldn't get if you picked both."You're saying "everyone should pick one of these two options because I say so, and anyone who says differently is doing it wrong." You're saying "I only need one lord of oozes," but are looking down on anyone who chooses to use both, saying it's too hard to do it "right"--meaning that you are elevating yourself to be the judge of who is playing the game correctly.I'm reminded of a quote by Isaac Asimov, on why he didn't write dystopias or utopias. "You can't build a symphony on just one note." You can create a richer and possibly even more realistic setting by having a mess of different lower-planar beings. It's not like real world mythology has neat little divisions.First off, Ghaunadaur is the god of oozes, abominations, rebels, and outcasts (and dismal caverns, in 4e), and is/was once a member of the drow pantheon. His worshipers include oozes, drow, aboleths, and ropers.Juiblex is the demon of oozes and shapeless things. His worshipers include oozes, "the insane," "desperate and diseased individuals," and aboleths.So there's some overlap, but far less than you think.Now, the FR Wiki says that Juiblex is an aspect of Ghaunadaur. So problem solved for you: you can have them both and they're the same thing! But that sounds like a 3x/4e thing where they consolidated deities, so let's say that they are actually totally different gods. Well, there's still not as much overlap as you claim. They have three things in common: oozes, aboleths, and preferring he/him pronouns. I see no reason why either aboleths or (intelligent) oozes can't worship two different but similar entities (except for the idea that aboleths would deign to worship anything; I'm going to assume they don't worship either god but instead just get power from them). A lot of humanoid gods are fairly similar, after all.So lets look at the FR Wiki again. Ghaunadaur wants basically one thing: sacrifices, especially "willing" sacrifices. What he gets out of those sacrifices, I don't know, but the entry also says that he really likes watching big monsters kill and maim people, so I'm going to go out on a limb and say that the purpose of these sacrifices is so that Ghaunadaur can watch people die messily.Now, Juiblex is described as the simplest of the demon lords to understand, because he wants nothing more than to keep existing while surrounded by goo. And that if he can be said to have a goal, it would be to dissolve everything into goo to surround himself with.So these two entities are already quite different. And then you can homebrew even more differences, if you wanted to. You can give Juiblex something of a personality and have him actively driving people insane and diseased. Maybe he causes people's brains to turn into gray oozes. You can focus on Ghaunadaur's portfolio as the god of rebels and outcasts, or of ropers.Fun fact time: my father actually writes comics for a living (as well as other, non-comic things), and has written and edited for DC, Marvel, and other companies for many decades now. It's actually how I got into D&D--he did some writing for TSR, back when they had a comics line (sadly, my dad doesn't game), and when I expressed an interest in the game, they gave me the core 2e books.Balancing all of the different super hero origins? All it takes is practice and familiarity with the characters. Some people have encyclopedic knowledge of the characters and issues. I've nearly always preferred non-super hero comics, but I can still name at least a few characters with each of the powers on the list without looking them up.You mean, look at movies instead of the actual comics? Why not look at the Batman/Superman crossover "World's Finest" from the old Batman: the Animated Series and Superman '90s cartoons, where Batman and Superman met for the first time and had to fight a team-up of Luthor and Joker. It was a well-written and fun story, and I will die on the hill of Kevin Conroy is Best Batman. So you finally understand that you can have both gods and archthings in a single setting and it's just as good as having only one?Did you not read what I wrote? I said "It's universal as of every setting published in 2e." One of these settings was made for 2e. Eberron was made for 3x, Nerath was made for 4e, and Theros, Ravnica, and Exandria were made for 5e.And Dark Sun is a special case because it's completely and specifically sealed off from both the outer planes and from the rest of the Material universe (closed sphere; no spelljamming).Because I guess you also haven't read any of the other posts I've made on this exact same subject multiple times already in this thread.</blockquote>

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