D&D 5E Why the heck does D&D have Hecate as Chaotic Evil

[dragoner]

I think it had something to do with a lot of the mediterranean cultures, Tanit was "evil" as well. Is it Hecate that is noted for witchcraft in Shakespeare as well?

 

[DrunkonDuty]

Yeah, the witches in Macbeth call on Hecate.

To the designers of DnD I'd say, maybe don't rely on Shakespeare if historical accuracy is desired.

 

[tsadkiel]

I guarantee that the interpretation of Kali mostly came from old books that were heavily influenced by (if not actually written during) the British occupation of India. The same kind of stuff that led to Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom being hard to watch now.

Absolutely, and it's utter nonsense when you look at the actual Kali from Indian belief.

Well I hate the alignment system and don't use it. But if were to do so... Lawful Good. She literally sprang into being to fight demons and save the gods.

There are Indian movies, plural, which end with Kali finally appearing (after sufficient acts of devotion) and blowing up the bad guys. Then she gently sets the protagonists on the right path in life and ;leaves. It's practically a subgenre - here's an example of Kali versus Satan. (and a giant skeleton made of bad cgi and Godzilla sound effects.)

So yes. The evil thing is some nonsense, and reflects Victorian British propaganda rather than the Kali people believe in.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Spelljammer preview video has Hecate as Chaotic Evil, which has going WTF?

Out of all the faiths that believe in Hecate, only in certain Gnostic & Satanic (no I don't know why some Satanists worship Hecate, but they do) sects is Hecate viewed as evil. In the Homeric Hymn to Demeter, Hecate is referred to tender hearted. The Chaldean Oracles called her The Mother of Angels. The Neopatonists viewed her as omnibelevent.

For those of you who wonder why I wanted to see Jesus statted up with a loot table in the Biblical 5e setting, this kind of stuff is why.

And despite praying to Hecate daily, I'm not offended, a little blasmphy keeps Zealotry at bay and is spiritual valuable, I'm just disappointed that they have such a naughty word understanding of Hecate. If they wanted a Chaotic Evil Greek God, that is what Typhon is for.

Ares is right there, being chaotic evil all over the place.

Hecate…yeah “wtf” is right.

 

[Mecheon]

Why is she even in this product?

Why does a god need a Spelljammer?

Eh, wouldn't be the first time she's had to go to the moon to help out an old friend who's become a grudge spirit and/or get revenge on someone's wife due to a sun being shot out of the sky. By unleashing a lampad dressed up like the American flag to cause maximum chaos against the hyper-lawful moon civilisation. As you do

(touhou's a bloody trip man and just 'hecate just turns up' is one of the hilarious parts of it)

 

[Mind of tempest]

I'd guess Hecate was probably characterized as evil in early D&D because of her association with Medea (her priestess) and the murder of Jason's sons by their mother in Euripides.

As a pre-Olympian, chthonian deity she represents a chaotic, pre-rational state from a Greek perspective, so I don't think it's entirely incoherent. But reducing real-world deities to D&D alignments is never really going to work, as you always end up missing about 90% of their significance.

jason started it

Is she ugly? Are her followers ugly? That's priority 1 of deciding good or evil in D&D.

Is she non-traditional in any way? If yes, CHAOTIC.

give see is from pre-reality chaos chaotic might honestly work but otherwise, you stand correctly.

Hecate is like Hades, the sad target of a centuries long pop cultural hit job.

hades was always hated but is mostly just a bureaucrat who runs the afterlife.

Absolutely.

I've long wanted a better treatment of religions in D&D terms. I thought David Schwartz did a fantastic job with three pantheons: the Mesopotamian pantheon ("Mesopotamian Mythos," Dragon #329, March 2005), Aztec pantheon ("Aztec Mythos I," Dragon #352, February 2007 to "Aztec Mythos IV," Dragon #358, August 2007), and the Finnish pantheon ("Kalevala Mythos," Targum #4, Winter 2008).

But this goes all the way back to AD&D 1E. I remember an article in Dragon #110, "For Better or Norse: II" by Carl Sargent, which re-examined Niord, Frey, Freya, and Loki. Mr. Sargent gave them alignments of Lawful Good (Niord), Neutral Good (Frey), Chaotic Good (Freya) and Chaotic Neutral (Loki).

What would a better alignment representation of Kali be?

angry as she is more or less made to fight when she is not in kill demon mode she is apparently some lass beginning with D who I forget about because she is dull and not brutally metal.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Spelljammer preview video has Hecate as Chaotic Evil, which has going WTF?

Out of all the faiths that believe in Hecate, only in certain Gnostic & Satanic (no I don't know why some Satanists worship Hecate, but they do) sects is Hecate viewed as evil. In the Homeric Hymn to Demeter, Hecate is referred to tender hearted. The Chaldean Oracles called her The Mother of Angels. The Neopatonists viewed her as omnibelevent.

For those of you who wonder why I wanted to see Jesus statted up with a loot table in the Biblical 5e setting, this kind of stuff is why.

And despite praying to Hecate daily, I'm not offended, a little blasmphy keeps Zealotry at bay and is spiritual valuable, I'm just disappointed that they have such a naughty word understanding of Hecate. If they wanted a Chaotic Evil Greek God, that is what Typhon is for.

Largely because they used Macbeth as a primary source.

And Deities & Demigods was written by Christians. Also see: Baal.

I'm very much of the view that D&D should avoid real word deities altogether.

 

[dave2008]

The interpretation of Kali they had back then was that of Kali as a Goddess of Destruction, but as a mother Goddess she is much more than just that and it's a simplistic and biased Western outlook for her.

I'd give her at least a Neutral or CN alignment, and that's probably another inaccurate view.

My point was less about Kali and more about all the gods (and I am specifically thinking about the 1e Deities and Demigods). As others have noted you could easily define almost all gods as evil - they do some crazy stuff in mythology and religion.

Regarding Kali, I have a weakness of deities of destruction, so I always like that aspect of her. Sometimes you just need to burn it all down!

 

[Henadic Theologian]

I've watched previews of the monster and setting books in the set, but not the adventure. Since I haven't seen any references to her, I'm assuming it's an NPC who worships her, or some site associated with her, from the adventure book.

She's already in tace PHB deities list as CE, so I'm not sure why this is suddenly an issue for the OP now, instead of years ago...

Largely because they used Macbeth as a primary source.

And Deities & Demigods was written by Christians. Also see: Baal.

I'm very much of the view that D&D should avoid real word deities altogether.

Using MacBeth for Hekate is like using South Park & Family Guy as your inspiration for depictions of Jesus.

I don't object to real world depiction deities, I think the Gods don't worry about that sort of thing, or Homer would have been a lot more in trouble given depictions of divine incest, rape, humour, etc...,

Again I'm not upset, just baffled.

 

[Reynard]

It is almost as if westerners -- read: christians -- think of other people's gods as "mythology" and aren't particularly concerned about religious "accuracy."

EDIT: Never mind. Bad idea.