A lot of the time, Evil deities in RPGs are pretty cookie cutter "God of zombies, god of blood, god of sickness" stuff. Post about the evil gods in your campaigns that have an interesting twist or concept.
>>44360529
I'll go first:
>Yaezhing
>LE God of Punishment and Harsh Justice
>Holy symbol is pic related
>Worshipers generally act like kung-fu Judge Dredds with insanely high moral standards
>Will execute bandits for attacking a village, then decimate the guard and maim the populace for not doing enough to stop them
> Hold themselves to insanely high standards as well, so most of cult is heavily scarred and/or maimed from self-punishment.
>Despite Evil alignment, are willing to work with Good characters to punish evildoers.
Separating gods from the setting they preside over is pretty haram. I think it'd be better to just keep the specifics like name, how they're worshipped, and their cult out of it and stick to describing the archetype. Like the idea of a goddess of spring also being goddess of revolution/upheaval or advocating a form of anarcho-primitivism over civilization at all costs.
>>44360529
Anorgash, the God of Nothing.
He was one of the children of the gods that created reality. When his siblings were given domains to govern over he was left without anything to rule over by accident. Embittered, he fled into the darkness between worlds to scheme. Now, he seeks to destroy the world and claim all souls of mortals for himself. Why?
So that he can createa new world where mortals can be reincarnated. A world without suffering, hunger or death. He legitimately wants to kick other gods off existence and give mortals an eternal paradise.
>>44360529
Does it have to be from campaigns or can it be from any media
Heim'loam're, great god of humans.
The original human, created us in its image and with its spirit to disestablish the order set by the other gods and inherit the universe as our own.
>creates universe
>evil and suffering everywhere
>doesn't do shit about it and just watches
>punishes people even though they spend their life worshipping him and following arbitrary rules
>is generally a dick to all his children
God of solitude, self sacrifice, & self perfection
>>44360702
If they believe that what they're doing is good, they'd be good aligned, regardless of the consequences of their actions.
>>44364374
but Anon, that's the usual
>>44364374
you're beginning to wake up
>>44364444
If you really think that's how it works, you need to git gud about alignment. Punishing people to a level that greatly exceeds the crime, or making the innocent suffer for the crimes of the guilty is pretty damn evil. By your logic, a complete madman who thinks that raping and beheading women will save their souls should detect as good.
>>44365650
all morality is subjective. You may think it's evil but they obviously think it's good, since they're acting on their morals. And yes, that last person would probably detect as chaotic good
>>44360529
Anthropophagus, God of the Feast and Cannibalism. Portrayed as an emaciated Blemmyae holding a mancatcher. When expecting guests bring out the best food and drink you can offer or he might bring the feast for you. At his table eat graciously and mind your manners, he won't let you leave without eating your fill.
>>44365696
>Post clearly references alignment system
>Talks about morality being subjective
That's not how this works, asshat.
>>44360529
God of Gunz
>>44364399
Interesting, but what makes him evil?
>>44361947
Any media, in case that wasn't clear.
>>44360529
>mfw your gods are so firmly entrenched in a single aspect that there are "good gods" and "bad gods"
>mfw you can't respect the positive aspect of a god of sickness or the negative aspect of a god of light
>mfw I have no face
>>44365951
YV did nothing wrong. He is a good boy.
A couple Homebrew D&D entries
Evil god of the Sun for a primarily desert-y setting. Harsh and fiery. All-seeing but ultimately destructive. Worshiped primarily out of fear, offerings made by the populace to appease
Good-aligned god of Death. Not Undeath, not necromancy, Death. Believes everything should have a chance at peaceful, final rest when its time comes. Clerics officiate funeral rites, destroy undead, and absolutely refuse to resurrect the dead (normally a top-level church service in D&D)
The God of Lost Causes. Hope springs eternal, and it causes the romantic and idealistic to lend their strength to truly horrible causes.
>>44365951
BRRRRRAP
>Goddess of greed, deception, subterfuge and dishonor
>A mustache-twirling style rogue of the incompetent evil variety that gets frustrated and stomps her feet and pouts when her harebrained schemes fail miserably
>Complete with a characteristic haughty laugh to try and save face
At least one of the funnier NPCs our games.
>>44367260
>shoot your bitch in the fat/little kids in the back
>at christmahanukwanzaka him hide in a tree/jump out, mini-gunnin' down your fat family
>>44368215
>>44367260
>wanna spell a good time to me, it's M U R D E R N O N S T O P
>>44360529
The nameless God
>was once the lover of the elves mother goddes
>in a rage she banished him to the abyss and made anyone who tried to name him forget about him
>to get out of the abyss he creates portals to the abyss that reflect certain parts of the world
>the abyss pumished those who enter with ironic hells
>the evil energy released from the suffering of everyone caught in the abyss empowers him
>Looks like quetzoquatol And has an army of skeletal wraiths
>>44360529
The god of serial killers.
It's a hobby.
>>44365953
Not evil, but he is a god that's willing to sit back and let evil gods have their way.
He'd probably have to be the ultimately powerful god or something as well.
God of fertility that doesn't buy into humanocentrism.
Where she goes, bacteria breed like crazy, predators breed like crazy, in addition to all the humans finding love.
>>44365951
*airhorn.wav*
I've got a couple of the usual types of evil gods that have secret cults and shit, like Asmodeus filling the role of the oh no evil fiend from hell type. Pretty boring, just there to fill the role. I actually completely removed alignments from the gods altogether, and choosing an alignment is optional in my games and used strictly as a roleplaying tool instead of a fundamental cosmic spiritual force.
I've got a god of necromancy named Luteus who is pretty typical, but his deal is that he actually created necromancy and created the first man-made undead AND became the first lich by corrupting the magic of the goddess of healing. There's a lesser god named Hust under him that's basically just a divine idiot super-zombie that he made completely by accident -- Hust is just a big ol' divine fuckup, a failed (or wildly successful? Who can even tell?) experiment in mixing divinity with undead. All mindless undead carry a piece of Hust's will within them, which is what drives them to attack the living and fills them with hate. Even undead that still have their senses about them feel Hust's influence pushing them to kill.
The other god that would fit this thread is Varinga: he promotes ruthless pragmatism, self-rule, self-reliance, and rational self-interest. He discourages the diminishing of the self and instead of prostration or praying for guidance, his adherents pray to find their inner strength and the power to guide themselves, and to get his attention when they accomplish great deeds in an "Are you watching?" type of prayer. My main inspiration for Varinga was Conan the Barbarian's Crom with a little bit of moral objectivism mixed in, and he's only considered evil because most of his worshipers are ruthless selfish jerks.
Statera, god of balance
In the setting theres usually a natural balance of good and evil happening and the universe enforces that. However, heroes occur naturally due to instabilities elsewhere such as an abundance of Evil such as a BBEG or vice versa. The party was at odds with the BBEG and the scales were again balanced. Then they killed him and the over abundance of Good represented by them in the world was great enough that the God of Balance was born. Their cosmic sin was so great existence created a god to forcibly ensure balance is maintained.
Statera was born. Countless worlds died so his birth could happen as destruction must beget creation and likewise. His first act was to find suitably Good people to afflict with Evil to become his champions as again, destruction before creating creations to destroy. Would be heroes full of promise fell and rose as champions of Statera and all he represented.
These champions became new BBEG's and in numbers great enough to offset Good tenfold. Statera would flood out the sin by sheer force then sear the cosmic wound by destroying his pawns.
So far one PC figured out the truth and offed himself for the greater good after finding out Statera's existence was fueled by the death of a few thousand worlds across the planes full of sentients and that their continued existence means many more will die. Bad bit was he never told the rest of the party who's determined to take Statera down causing him to throw BBEG after progressively stronger BBEG and subsequent Evil meaning genocides and mass slaughter without precedent. The cleric was given a vision of the party riding black clouds raining flames not distinguishing between angels or demons in the fields below. but i'm not sure if he got the hint.
>>44364374
Gee, I wonder who could be behind this post
>>44364496
>about to agree with left hand guy based on first paragraph
>dae le demiurge
stop
>>44361857
Sounds like a cool guy. Would worship.
In my longest running campaign, my character worships a deity/quasi-deity/entity-that-might-or-might-not-be-a-deity called "The Manifold". No one is actually sure whether The Manifold are a number of separate beings operating under a single title, a gestalt organism, or a single incredibly powerful being suffering from severe schizophrenia that manifests as different aspects according to the phases of the sun and moon. The barrier between the material plane and theirs (which might be The Far Realm, or something adjacent to it) is semi-porous, with the stars and moon acting as lenses that they can either peer through or use to focus their power on particular subjects (as well as granting devout worshipers power).
The Manifold exists in a place where the concepts of Death and Pain were eradicated. As a result, they are undying and impervious to harm within their own realm. The pain and deaths of mortal beings are a sort of currency to them, as they cannot attain such "precious commodities" on their own. In exchange for knowledge of fleshwarping techniques and freedom from their former slave-masters, my character's people offer them ritual sacrifices and routinely engage in trials revolving around inflicting pain upon one another as part of coming-of-age ceremonies. They also inhabit a jungle that is essentially your average 40k Death World transplanted into an otherwise fairly typical D&D universe.
>>44369000
8/10 would worship, metal as fuck
>>44365696
Morality can and is deduced logically. It's as subjective as calculus. Go fuck yourself.
>>44364496
>Gnostic is well kept
>life-affirmative is doesn't brush teeth
way to defeat your own point.
>>44369401
Ah, belly laughs. Good one anon. All 'objective moralities' rest on the agent's acceptance of their summum bonum. By all means elucidate your personal ethic, describing how your morality if followed will lead to the greatest pleasure for yourself, or for the many, or the great 'nobility', or the greatest beauty, or the survival of the species or the nation.
Then realize that other men, no less wise then you, have rejected your virtues on the grounds that they prefer to set as their goal some goal other then the one you chose. Your means are objective, your end can be rejected without a second thought.
>>44369717
OP just asked for evil gods. Not a philosophy lecture from someone hung up on the subjectivity of good and evil.
Good is whatever the majority of a society deems as such. Evil, likewise.
>>44369759
Well sure, if you're a faggot I guess.
>>44368775
This is intriguing, yet edgy.
>>44369717
Shut the hell up, Nietzsche. You aren't even a Knight of Infinite Resignation yet, what do you know about morality.
>>44370137
Oh eat a dick Kierkegaard you're literally all the worst stereotypes about Christianity if they were true. At least Aquinas had substance.
>>44364374
>muh problem of evil
Go away.
Radiance, Goddess of the Golden Light
Prayer to her imbues you with rapidly increased regeneration from injuries and if she wills it, you may even be brought back from death and given an additional chance. She is very choosy, however, and resurrection is very rare. She also casts a ray of light which pacifies anybody caught in it, erasing their desire for combat and only instilling an absolute wish of peace.She has been watching the world burn itself and recreate itself for a few thousand years and initially she wept at humanity's aggressive self-destruction, but at some point she became hateful towards humanity for wasting her gifts, for using her blessings to kill others, and for the deaths of innocents who had nothing to do with conflict. So she has taken it upon herself to overwhelm battlefields with her regenerative abilities so that clashes can literally last for weeks on end, with soldiers feeling the agony of being mutilated again and again and again, believing that the goddess merely wants them to prove their worth to deserve such a benevolent offering. She is only hatefully extending pain and agony at this point, and if a war ever turns to a decisive point, she will immediately pacify any mobilizing armies to the point where they will retreat and regroup for a later engagement.
Haven't GMed yet, but I will be includingno idea wear to name it yetDemon lord of time, he wrested control of the sands of the material plane from a God and ascended to Demon Lord. Unlike other Lords he controls a competitively small region, only about the size of a large country. Instead of focusing on acquiring souls and amassing more territory and demons, he has set out to out to absorb all those with power over time, always seeking the sands with power over the other planes. For this purpose he sends forth mortals to act as his agents for only those who are at times mercy can grasp hold of the sands which are time incarnate. He employs agents of all alignments, appearing to some good mortals in the guise of his long defeated foe, still others he entices to gather the sands and challenge him, he cares not for method or motivation, only results. Furthermore his Evil Good equivalent status is a direct result of the horrific manner in which he stole the sands, his end goal is something wholly selfish, and not particularly evil, but he will do Anything to achieve his goal.
Ghef god of Biscuits. Also known as Saint Ghef.
Domain of Feast and Gluttony
Holy symbol is that of a stalk of wheat.
Made this up due to Eddie Izzard. But my cleric to Ghef took on a life well past the quick joke.
Larminic god of the lost
Neutral evil
A trister god, larminic causes those that are lost to be found and those who know their way to lose it.
One of three original gods, larminiv during the time his offspring rose up to take a godly mantle misled them to different places of power than their design and twisted their thinking afterwards to a process of cruelty.
Feared by the populace and loved by the straggling, larminic has yet to gain a cult following.
Hymanilus, The god of Ennui, toil, and those who feel lost. He believes that boredom spurs all of the greatest acts and advancements in mankind's history, though he is very tired of being only the force wish spurns action, and instead wishes to become the god of change.
For a god, he's on the wimpy side. He's good enough in a fight to hold his own with most humans, but he's rather lacking in divine power beyond just being mostly immortal, so he can hardly tear apart the heavens and assert himself as the god of change. Instead, he inflicts an intense feeling of boredom and lack of purpose with their lives on select individuals. In cases of the strong-willed people who cannot stand the boredom themselves, they will eventually either change their life way that works towards the benefit of hymanilus, or they snap and make rash changes that often ends in death (latent sociopaths often just start murdering people.) and the loved ones of the deceased are often soon to join the ranks of those who feel lost in the world, increasing his influence and power. In the case of the more weak-willed, they are crushed by the weight of their boredom and feel as if there is no escape. Then, at the brink of despair, Hymanilus will appear and pull them back from the brink, and alleviate their lack of purpose by offering them a chance to aid him in his quest to ascend to greater heights, and bring about greater change, and almost all of them are quick to join his cause, and often are willing to go to great lengths to fill themselves with a sense of higher purpose after being brought down so low.
No one is straight up immune to his influence, though they can shake off the sense of ennui by simply bringing about significant and meaningful change and having strong convictions. Effectively making it easier for heroes to rally against him in greater numbers and gusto.
>>44364496
Can't tell if /x/ or /pol/...
>>44360529
Currently, in my campaign, while good and evil aren't measurable truths, the closest thing to an evil deity is "Soot, The Great Rat, God of Fortune." He's sort of a devil-figure, searching for every man's price, and how much temporal "fortune" is needed to buy the true fortune of a man's soul, because in the end all things of value will belong to Soot. His parallel is Birel, Goddess of Misfortune, is sort of close to good-ish, who's cult has two sects, the sect of "tragedy" who willingly accept the role of tragic heroes to take the misfortune of the world upon themselves (some more insidious members encourage others to take the role of tragic hero for the greater good of society,) and the sect of "comedy" that secretly makes sure that misfortune befalls the wicked and prideful.
Both of these are PC's from the last iteration of this game, and their deific personalities are, in-part, informed by the imput of those characters' players.
Toying with a concept, haven't really come up with a name for either being yet. Bonus points if anyone can figure out where I basically stole this from (I mostly just tweaked alignments and motivation).
Basically there's a godlike agent of entropy, toying with the fate of mortals in order plunge the world into chaos, not so much for the evulz and more out of a desire to prevent the eternal stagnation of a perfectly ordered world. They are poised against an entity of equal power who means to do the exact opposite, establishing order in the wake of the chaos and suffering caused by the other.
They've entered a "truce" of sorts, the last time they rose against each other they nearly destroyed the mortal realm, something neither of them wants. They've agreed to a set of rules over the eons, they may not intervene directly in the affairs of mortals, and so must choose mortals to carry out their bidding, pieces on a board in their cosmic game.
Those who follow order mostly do so by choice, so much so that rarely does their patron even have to intervene to guide them.
Their role is more to gently and imperceptibly guide their chosen along the path.
Chaos is more insidious, but cannot simply force most mortals into servitude, because rules and what have you. Instead he persuades them through games of chance, offering great rewards to the desperate, claiming the unfortunate souls who fail as his own pieces.
>>44369401
>>44365650
Look man, regardless of whether you're going full Kant and declaring that RL morality is RL objective, it's not objectively measurable to a perfect degree of accuracy like it is in great-wheel-D&D-assumed-setting.
Having morality that's as measurable as a quark's spin, or an ion's magnetic charge makes deities like>>44360702 basically impossible to implement in any plausible way. However, a deity that believes that it is doing good, who's followers believe they are doing good, and who take punishment for wrongdoings to the EXTREME is an interresting idea that [assumed D&D great wheel] does not allow.
THAT is what we are talking about. If you want to start going full Kant, we can throw down, but we're talking about D&D right now.
>>44370175
So why does god give babies aids then?
My god of evil is...different.
He is what is truly what humanity hates.
Yet it can not be without.
Paperwork
Fines
corruption.
His symbol is a paperweight, a small anchor.
It signifies how you are always weighed down by him
Every empire needs him, and is often a cause of...disagreement between religious followers.
The mighty empire is often stomping out religious anarchists, yet the cities always turn into a den of debauchery and hedonism, all government sanctified corruption through the roof.
The reason he is evil, isnt because he was made that way. He was driven to be evil, by countless abuses, by countless snubs by other dieties. He turned, from a small minor god into the dominating power, all by using a minor talent for paperwork.
>>44364374
If you take Yahweh and Judaism (and by relation Christianity) as the henotheistic religion it started as, it'd all make sense.
God isn't perfect he's just the most powerful omnipotent being, with the least quirks.
>>44371662
I'm actually running this in Pathfinder, and its alignment system seems to weigh action and intention more equally than D&D. Yaezhing and his worshipers can be LE because, to them, normal justice, kindness, and even punishments that fit the crime do not matter to them: they just want to punish those who, in their eyes, are guilty. And they have an Inquisition-style "Innocence proves nothing" approach to the law: their holy book literally says that EVERY crime, from loitering to murder, can be punished with a death sentence, and that anything short of a long, torturous execution is merciful. I think its hard to argue that such a god is good, or even neutral.
>>44368283
Pappa Nurgle is pleased.
>>44364374
>God is the reason for evil in the world
Don't strain yourself with all that tipping m8
>>44364444
i dont think that makes sense, despite all quads
>>44364374
I get that this shit is bait but do they ever actually explain why he put a tree capable of imparting the knowledge he specifically didn't want them to have out in the open and give it bright red fruit? Or how him being omnipotent somehow missed satan snake fucking over his shit?
>>44364444
This is what communists tell themselves.
>>44374354
Would it not be wrong to even call him omnipotent, seeing as there is a specific entity he cannot defeat?
I have one from a roguelike that used D&D mechanics. Erich, the Lawful Evil God of Chivalry, Nobility Social Hierarchy.
Having sworn vassalage to the Lawful Neutral Immotian, he is tolerated as a military ally to the primary faith. Erich is Evil because he either makes no effort to, or perhaps physically can not understand Good and Evil.
To Erich, you are born in a caste, and must serve it. For a Priest of Erich to even have equal conversation with a peasant is a sin. He views Chaos with complete hate. Slaying strong beasts earn his favor, but goblinoids are pests to be completely exterminated. Even rules regarding fleeing enemies, poisons, and surrender are ignored when fighting goblinoids.
All nobles, worshippers of Erich or not, will offer room and board to his knights and priests whenever requested, barring special circumstances, to avoid his ire.
Paladins are granted an exemption to the good part of the equation if sworn to Erich, but are punished more severely for being unlawful.
>>44371662
I think DnD is reconcilable with subjective morality.
That which you call "good" is only what is decreed to be "good" by the Good gods, who themselves are the personification of what mortals believe to be good. It's a self-defining loop of people believing that certain things are good because that is what their gods teach, and their gods being shaped by their belief. It's close enough to being universal, because most people share some fundamentals of morality, and because sufficient belief warps the universe itself. The planes are shaped to reflect what people belief, and those who examine them can see that they were right all along.
It makes things like entire cultures and species being "always Evil" a lot more plausible than morality being truly independent. Most Evil people aren't knowingly committing wrongs, they just disagree with the majority view, or don't care at all.
There's a god I like to include in all my games who is a God of Lies.The catch is he isn't actually a god, just a very, VERY good liar.
>Bereth
>Lawful evil god of death and cremation
>Guards the gates of the Burial Halls, a realm of existence where all souls go to after their physical form perishes
>Does not let a soul in if its corpse has not been burned, instead sending it back into the corpse, turning it into a Returned, a bloodthirsty undead being of pure rage that can only be killed by burning it
>Priesthood consists of zealous pyromancers that arrange public funeral pyres in which are also thrown those who failed to burn their loved ones and other relatives
>His vainglory means that after every battle in a war, a truce is struck so that all the corpses can be burned before they become Returned
>>44369000
noice, really noice.
>>44360529
The God of Women. If you don't understand why he is evil, you're already fully in his grasp.
>>44367395
Why would the romantic and idealistic support horrible causes just because of hope? Hope can definitely be a bad thing where people hope to be saved and think positively instead of realizing how bad shit is.
>>44368775
The cleric should've just become evil and made the party balance themselves, and then return to being good only after defeating Statera (seems like it's possible the way you word it).
>>44368828
The hero we deserve
>>44371887
So, you got screwed over by a bureaucrat and deified it into D&D. Nice.
>>44376089
Personally, I prefer the original Law/Chaos axis, with no measurable Good/Evil. The cosmos can make a distinction between order and disorder, but only human subjective judgement can make a distinction between "good" and "evil": a concept that's too small-scale for the grand cosmos to understand. Admitedly, moderately law aligned things appear "good" to mortals, and moderately chaos aligned things appear "evil" to mortals, but go too far down either axis, and you're beyond mortal concepts of good and evil. That's actually why I liked 4e's alignment system, because "Good" was TRULY "Moderately Law" "Lawful Good" was "Cosmically Law," "Evil" was just "Moderately Chaos," and "Chaotic Evil" was "Cosmically Chaos."
>>44373996
The problem is that's a deity that no sane individual would ever follow, especially if there are objectively existent alternatives. If his believers BELIEVE they are doing good, because good's suibjective, but the Law/Chaos axis is measurable. Yaezhing's Law alligned... and law's always good right..? It just so happens that he's SO law alligned that it starts to expose the underlying alien-nature of cosmic alignment.
>>44374964
This is what all humans tell themselves, everyday .
>>44377669
merry Christmas Che
>>44377683
Who?
>>44364444
>>44365650
Yeah this man is right. Specific examples from D&D canon, both fiction and source books, tell us that just because somebody thinks they're doing good, if their actions are inarguably Evil (actions, not consequences of those actions) they're Evil aligned.
>>44360529
This brings up a good point. Are there any gods of tentacles in RPGs?
>>44377836
What if most people think their actions are good?
So one of the things about my campaign is that gods are basically just a tribe of spirits empowered by mortal worship, so they're constantly fighting to claim each other's domains and ranges
I didn't realize that that sounded like a math joke until I typed it out, but in this case "domain" is something for which they are worshiped, and "range" is where they're worshiped for that thing.
Mara is one of the most powerful gods: she's forced herself into every pantheon on the main landmass and has claimed the domains of knowledge/secrets, water, and/or oceans in most of them. In the far north she's intruding as the demon of secrets, and in the far east she's the goddess of dark water (deep ocean).
Not too bad for somebody that started two millennia ago as the nymph of a half mile of coast.
Her big trick, and part of how she's established her worship, is the idea that she claims all treasure that's fallen into the sea, and her rise to greater power started when the most famous library in the world, built on a small island, was washed into the ocean by a tsunami. She's also gained some necromantic aspects to her personal power, and thus to her portfolio; in particular, she's begun to learn everything known by people who drown.
She's personally rapacious and amoral, and will now do things like specifically try to drown people that know great secrets so that she can gain their knowledge.
This has unavoidably influenced her worship and the cultures where she's worshiped; in many places now, knowledge is considered a precious secret treasure, and people are very greedy about sharing it, for instance.
There's a whole symbology thing about the ocean muttering the secrets of the drowned too.
>>44377875
Literally true? Most people can and do justify everything they do to themselves. Most evil is really just thoughtlessness, sometimes with a little poor impulse control mixed in.
Any alignment system with an in-universe objective component has this issue, where it's implied that there are these cartoonish, mustache twirling, evil for evil's sake creatures.
But like I said, everyone tries to justify how they act to themselves. So in a D&D world, where there are these literal, physically real, objective alignment energies, I ask myself what would "really" happen?
Well, one idea is that people would establish research as to how these forces work, and then rules lawyer things: "Sure, I drove half the city to destitution, but then I gave an amount of money calculated by my virtumancy to the soup kitchens they all eat at now, so as the priest with his detect alignment spell will tell you, I'm Objectively Good."
More likely, they'd spin things. Libraries worth of books would be written about how stupid it was to call the Essence of Personal Prosperity "Evil", and the Essence of Stupidity "Good", or something similar, and why only stupid rubes make basic logic errors about how just because Our Glorious Emperor and his shipping magnate buddies detect as "Personally Prosperous", and so do baby raping psychopaths do too, that there's something even slightly similar in a moral sense between what they do.
>>44374354
Because God wanted us to have free will, and free will requires opportunities to make meaningful choices. And what choice can be more meaningful than whether or not to obey and love God?
The most evil god in my setting would be the world's creator god. He found that having his supreme, holy self restrained by how much mortals liked him to be completely insufferable, and he came to hate mortals more than anything. Eventually, he was driven to madness by his rage, and plotted to avenge himself on the mortals, no matter the cost.
He collected the waters of life in his cupped hands, then cut them off to make the world. He plucked out his right and left eye and placed them as the sun and moon above his new world to make the sky. He then ripped off the other gods' designs for mortal races and placed them on his new world, where they would only know torture and worship of him. Thus, hidden from his fellow gods, he had created a source of eternal power and gratification.
At least until the other gods noticed him playing by himself in a corner of the divine schoolyard, kicked sand in his eye sockets and took over with much better deals for the mortals.
They call him The Blind Hatred now. He'll never stop being salty about it.
How is this Greyhawk god evil?
http://www.canonfire.com/wiki/index.php?title=Earth_Dragon
>Portfolio: Earth, weather, hidden treasures
>Domains: Earth, Evil, Law, Protection, Weather
>The Earth Dragon is a Flan spirit of earth, weather, and hidden treasures. It is the spirit of Mount Drachenkopf in the Pomarj. Its symbol is a coiled dragon.
>Dogma: The Earth Dragon is the great provider and the spirit of the earth. Those who worship it and obey it are promised protection. The Earth Dragon is said to know all the secrets of the land, favoring its chosen with power and knowledge. To please their god, the faithful must worship, sacrifice, and spread the faith to others.
>Worshippers: Only 30% of the Earth Dragon's worshippers are human. The others are members of evil humanoid races such as orcs, gnolls, goblins, hobgoblins, and ogres. Each congregation is served by several shamans and a witch doctor.
>Because any activity involving earth, stone, and the underground is pleasing to the Earth Dragon, the cult is equally popular among farmers, miners, and masons. Warriors focus on the god's destructive side.
>The derro know and respect the Earth Dragon, and do not enter its realm without performing ritual sacrifices.
It seems neutral to me.
>>44377611
If you really want to go down that road, why the hell are there worshipers of gods of death, or plague, or basically any evil god? You all get screwed in the end with them, and its pretty damn obvious on first face that that's the result.
Yaezhing has worshipers for three reasons. First off, the land is in a period of extreme chaos, where there are bandits running all over the place, and some people are so desperate that they're more willing to trade off for psychotic tyrants over constant bandit attacks. Second, he provides his worshipers a sense of a greater cosmic order, where there is true justice, unbound by petty mortal law. And, third, there's the old "obey me and gain power" deal.
>>44371625
Bernkastel and Lambdadelta?
>>44378892
No, but upon reading about them I can see why you'd think that. Might be worth drawing off of.
>>44380639
Then I'm thinking Philemon and Nyarlathotep from Persona 1 and 2.
>>44360529
God of Light. Seeks to bring light to all dark places and see the creatures that dwell there burned away. All who turn away from his light are considered an enemy of his church.
Dilemma : Humans require periods of darkness to live.
Actions which constitute turning away from his light: wearing blindfolds to bed, being blind, entering caves or buildings, spending time in forests, entering the shadow of a cliff or hill, existing on cloudy days, physically turning away from his light, which causes blindness within ten minutes. Is actually just a star with an ego problem.
God of Truths and Revelation. Brutally honest. Unfortunately enjoys the brutality as much as the honesty. Does not take potential misuse of knowledge into consideration; all Truth must be known in entirity. Upper priesthood consists almostly exclusively of autistic savants capable of reciting libraries from memory, but completely unable to contextualize.
Godess of Growth, Life, and Fertility. Non-discriminitory, loves your tumors too. Completely opposed to death for any reason. Considers Life a binary condition; quality of life is unimportant as long as risk of death is minimal and propagation continues.
Scripture contains major contradictions relating to the paradox of consumption. Attempts to clarify the issue draw wrathful (but non-fatal) reply.
Why does your setting not include Mellifleur, the lich-god from the 1992 book for 2e "Monster Mythology," whose accidental apotheosis and unusual circumstances make Neutral GOOD deities help him battle evil?
>Of all these beings, the most extraordinary tale is that of Mellifleur, the Lich-Lord. Mellfleur was an ancient wizard who had faithfully prepared his magical road to undeath, and dutifully enacted the magical rituals with great care.
>What he did not know was that a major god of evil—who varies from pantheon to pantheon in different versions of this myth—was just about to raise a mortal priest to become a demigod through divine ascension. A great backwash of god-magic resonated with Mellifleur's rituals, and the wizard became a demigod instead. Thus the Lich-Lord came into being by mistake, a glorious irony.
>Illithid sages have an extraordinary variant of this tale, claiming that the event involved a collective impulse among the gods themselves, so that several evil gods in different worlds were all carrying out the same operation at the same time, and their combined magical effects, summed and transformed, raised Mellifleur not just to deity status but to the status of a lesser god. This would certainly explain why in the GREYHAWK® campaign, Nerull is said to be the deity who created Mellifleur; in Toil, they say BANE?, and in other worlds, other dark names are invoked.
>One thing is for certain: to survive, Mellifleur has to have his avatars oppose the actions of the dark deity who created him, lest his own be diminished and the evil god recapture and absorb Mellifleur's power. The Lich-Lord must oppose certain evils to survive.
>On occasion, it is said, some deities of neutral good in particular actually aid him, to avoid the greater evil of the greater god triumphing. Evil fights evil, aided by good to maintain division.
>>44369401
You're confusing morality with ethics.
Morals define what is Right. Ethics define what is conductive to prosperity. The latter is measurable by many objective metrics, while the former is measurable only by metrics they themselves establish.
Morality is binary. An act is right, or it is wrong. A complex act can be broken down into which aspects were right, which were wrong, and therefore calculate the moral grounding of the act based on the ratio between the two. The exact acts matter because morality and immorality do not cancel out in equal measure; a single murder might outweigh a hundred nights working at the soup kitchen. Wrongs are forgiven, but never destroyed.
Ethics are a scale. An act brings more or less benefit at more or less cost. From this, the net gain of an act can be determined. The exact acts do not matter so long as their effects on the system as a whole are equivalent; a single murder wight be outweighed by a hundred nights at the soup kitchen, if one or more of those served would have starved otherwise. However, to serve soup while refraining from murder would be more ethical.
>>44378456
>Those who worship it and obey it are promised protection.
Conversely, those who do NOT worship and obey are not protected. Worship consists of sacrifice, obedience entails furthering his worship among others.
Note: at no point does it elaborate just what you're protected FROM.
In short, he's running the same protection racket the Mafia does. You keep your head down and pay up, he leaves you alone. Somebody else tries to push you around, he takes care of it (you're part of HIS turf after all).
You make a fuss, or can't pay the tithe? Say goodbye to your kneecaps.
Goddess of Healing / Savage Bloodshed are aspects of the same goddess.
TLDR: when her father is killed, she goes berzerk and cannot be sated except by the blood of the battlefield.
In the healing aspect temples red wine is sacrificed to sate her thirst and keep her calm.
Lifted from Egyptian mythos.
>>44368435
>posts tumblr picture
>expects people to read his unoriginal shit
haha, no.
>>44381375
no
Morality is subjective
>>44360529
Bob, God of Edge Cases.
Is granted power everytime someone works out htat there's a weird edge case in which the known laws of reality break down or goes haywire.
Morality is subjective but not in a universe where a spell called "Detect evil" exists and evil is literally a cosmological force
>>44371625
The Belgariad and Malloreon?
>>44381771
Detect Evil is really just a Probalistic Scry Spell looking into a possible future to detirmine vaguely whether the person it's been used on's soul is likely to sink to the lower planes if they were to die right then. "morality" doesn't really come into it, and they have been known to be wrong.
>>44381668
That's exactly what I said. Morals are subjective because they can only be measured by moral metrics, which themselves are supported by moral reasoning. Ethics are objective because physical wellbeing is consistently measurable by independent metrics.
>>44377528
The army taught me the evils of paperwork
Rick. The mushroom God of death, fate and war. An amalgam of the grim reaper, a lovecraftian outer god, a fey and a hippy myconid. They all got mixed up in one crazy week involving multiple possessions and fey contracts.
>>44378578
>If you really want to go down that road, why the hell are there worshipers of gods of death, or plague, or basically any evil god? You all get screwed in the end with them, and its pretty damn obvious on first face that that's the result.
Yes, this is a question that you need to answer before fully fleshing out your campaign. To be quite frank, in a world where good and evil are measurable, as are the afterlife as a cosmic reward/punishment system, justifying mortals doing evil acts, outside of extreme moments of passion, is in-fact difficult. That's one of the reasons I prefer the Law/Chaos-axis-only worlds, and/or worlds where the afterlife is not a knowable fact (either no resurrection, or no memories upon resurrection, or dreamlike memories that don't corroborate.) This way, you can have believable villains.
God of Hope. When you realize that the logical thing would be to give in to despair, give up, and save what little can be saved, his voice resonates within your heart and makes it impossible to do so. You have to go on. It will work this time, it has to.
But it doesn't, and if there's still something left of you to continue towards your own personal apocalypse, he'll guide you there, now with renewed strength. After all, despair like this feeds hope. Behind the string of ever-growing catastrophes and defeat must be the glorious dawn of redemption, victory and justice.
>>44378578
>>44383084
Maybe the objective morality of the universe doesn't QUITE match up with conventional human morality, and it's possible to game the system. Maybe telling lies is as bad as murder, and you can balance out a few murders by always telling the truth. Maybe whatever forces uphold the system don't care about consequences as much as actions, and are more or less fine with you driving an innocent man to suicide as long as you don't kill him yourself.
Maybe there is great power available to those willing to ignore their eventual damnation. If all magic runs on human sacrifice, a lot of wizards are going to be killing people. Especially if there's a chance at immortality involved, letting sufficiently clever and powerful people evade the afterlife indefinitely.
Maybe the evil gods offer protection, in the form of a less nasty afterlife for those who serve them well enough. Did something bad? Worried about going to hell? Give your soul to the demon-god Belgaxtu, and he'll look after it.
Maybe some people are just exempt from the whole thing. Maybe those always-chaotic-evil races are that way because they literally lack souls.
>>44383084
>muh realism in fantasy
Moving on: there are people IRL who genuinely, sincerely believe in objective good and evil, and choose to do things that, BY THEIR OWN "OBJECTIVE" HEURISTICS ARE EVIL, and then claim that they have a super special case that means that when THEY do it, they do good. This is because humans are really good at rationalizing their actions and really bad at being perfectly rational enlightened beings that always cooperate in prisoner's dilemmas.
As for my setting: its in part because most Evil cults operate through indoctrination (either kidnapping people and brainwashing them, or by not revealing their real nature until they've degraded their inductee enough that they don't object to evil, as they have become evil), and in part because the world operates on a system of reincarnation (because Eastern themes), so people rationalize that they'll just balance out their bad karma/spend a short time in one of the bad realms, then get around to being pious in the next life (since it takes a lot of bad karma accumulated over multiple lives for you to become an evil outsider).
Another contributing factor is that, instead of the standard measure of Good/Evil, my setting measures "Good" and "Evil" as being merely two parts of a greater whole: "Evil" is excessive attachment to the material world and transient desires (I portray "Evil" outsiders as being more like the Preta or Asura: either wretched creatures equally deserving of pity, disgust, and fear, or creatures that can be kind or cruel, but are usually DANGEROUS and interfering with other's attempts at becoming enlightened. "Good", on the other hand, is being unattached to transient things and focused on virtuous action. "Good" outsiders tend to be merciful and just, but often eerily indifferent to the affairs of the world, and just as likely to chastise someone for weeping over their dead comrades as they are to console them. "Neutral" on that axis is somewhere in between.
>>44383653
That second-to-last one also applies to my vaguely-Eastern setting, in addition to the whole karma and Good and Evil being much more Buddhist/Hindu. The gods of evil give their servants better treatment when they're working off their karmic debt in the lower realms.
>>44383874
>there are people IRL who genuinely, sincerely believe in objective good and evil
But these people don't have a tricorder handed down from heaven that objectively beeps "good" or "evil" when you point it at something. The ramification of the objective measurability is what I'm talking about.
>>44383653
>Maybe the objective morality of the universe doesn't QUITE match up with conventional human morality
We're not talking about a world where magic and the ability to measure morality just appeared after thousands of years of cultural development without it (though that would be a justification) this is a world where the ability to mesure morality has been around for thousands of years, and the people's understanding of morality would have developed around the understand of this process' existence.
>>44384028
>Completely ignoring the rest of the post
>>44384116
The point is that, in a world where philosophy developed in an environment where morality and the afterlife were measurable truths, we wouldn't wind up with medieval noteurope where our 21st century understanding of good and evil, informed by millenia of having to make our own judgements about right and wrong, and doubt said decisions have any relevant frame of reference. Taking the "great wheel D&D cosmology" assumption, and developing a setting from the ground up based on what actually would develop there would be an interesting thought experiment or worldbuilding experience, but what would pop out is going to be alien enough to make Eclipse Phase look downright mundane and predictable.
>>44384028
>this is a world where the ability to mesure morality has been around for thousands of years, and the people's understanding of morality would have developed around the understand of this process' existence.
Yeah, good point. It could work if the existence of the afterlife was some kind of closely guarded secret, and the working classes were left alone to develop their own philosophical theories. Of course, then you need some kind of justification for how and why it's been kept a secret for thousands of years.
>>44360529
I've got an idea for unfailingly cheerful fellow, who is often indiscriminately kind and helpful while also having no sense of remorse, guilt, or shame. He's the sort of God who takes pleasure in fulfilling all sorts of requests, and finds almost any result to be to his liking. While helping others genuinely pleases him greatly, he's also a quite the sadist at the same time.
He's the sort of God you pray to when you're truly desperate and the others don't seem to be listening, because he never quite answers prayers the way people would like. You get what you asked for and you're never outright cheated in the deal, but it's usually delivered in some horrifying manner.
For instance, if you called upon him to revive your dead child he's not just going to make some mindless zombie, soulless undead, or possessed corpse, but they're still going to be quite far from an ordinary human child when you get them back. This God isn't the sort who sells people counterfeits or anything, but he still likes to make things "better" before returning them.
That kind of explains his whole style. He'll "help" you way more than you ever wanted to be helped in the first place.
Want to help people and have the courage to be a hero? Well, you can expect a curse that draws you into horrible situations and punishes you for every act of cowardice or makes it impossible to retreat, and raises you as a Revenant to continue your forced march of heroism even after death. There is no rest or reprieve for such a cursed hero, and they will spend the rest of their existence traveling from one tragedy, horror, or depravity to the next without any real stop inbetween. Good luck finding the time to eat or sleep when disaster and evil wait for no man. However, you still really get to help people and do heroic things.
>>44384841
Usually I go with either
A: Resurrection doesn't exist
B: The resurrected do not have memories of their time in the afterlife
C: The resurrected have indecipherable dreamlike memories that rarely if ever corroborate with any other resurrected.
>>44371625
The Animorphs; The Elimist and Crayak?
I have a Fertility Goddess in my settings that is thought to be actually responsible for most of human suffering in my settings, so I guess that could count as an unusual "evil" god. Though she is more unpredictable and capricious than flat out evil.
In some urbanized societies, she is in fact associated with hazard, due to her unpredictable, chaotic disposition.
>>44381375
>>44381668
Probably waaay too late to the discussion, but both of you are wrong on just about everything you've said.
First of all, the distinction between morality and ethics is far more simple: Morality is a concrete normative model that you use for determining what is right and wrong, and ethics is the academic field that studies and debates moral systems.
Ethics are meta-morality: morality debates what's good and what is bad, ethic debates where notions of good and bad come from, compares different moral models etc...
Also, morality is NEVER subjective. It's normative, by definition.
I made this up just now.
>Fwarkin
>CE God of Wasted Time
>Holy Symbol is a headless chicken body
>Fwarkin represents the loss of time due to misfortune and random chance. It is a mindless force that breaks tools, causes animals to run away and make life hard or boring.
>It takes the form of a massive floating chicken head, who instantly and automatically causes misfortune and havoc as it watches the universe from it's inter-dimensional prison.
>The other gods of the local pantheon decapitated the God Chicken in order use it's body to create Time, and locked the head away in the Timeless Zone.
>Farmers and crafters often give tithe to this god through animal decapitation and allowing the headless body to wander about until it collapses.
>This ritual helps farmers and craft-people from ruining their work on accident and making mistakes that waste a lot of time.
> The ritual works best by doing it as a community and sacrificing many animals at once to prevent the appearance of a Fwarkling, which is a large demon that appears as a headless featherless chicken corpse of a sickly green color.
Although nonviolent, the misfortune and calamity follows in it's wake. Similar to people that are being watched by Fwarkin, places cursed by the presence of a Fwarkling suffer from constant random fuck-ups.
>The ritual is part of a popular festival that includes racing headless chickens and fried chicken heads.
>The presence of so much blood is said to repel the Fwarkling which is either disgusted or frightened by the smell or magic of the animal sacrifices.
>Although it might seems strange that good and humble folk pay so much respect to mindless and petty god such as Fwarkin, the effort pays off for communities who are racing the seasons in order to produce enough food for everyone.
>>44384504
Well, I guess I'm not autistic enough to "think things through" and actually like my fantasy universes to resemble things that my players can relate to, instead of making some kind of alien autism zone for a setting. Sorry for not liking what you like.
>>44377863
Source on pic?
>Xavia
>God of Light
>Lawful Evil
>Sleeps during the night, watches everything during day
>Hates underworld creatures and races with every fiber in his celestial body. It is said that he glares them to death if he sees them during the day. He's one of the reasons why Drows hates us all
>His clerics can smite their enemies by making sunlight deadly to them. With this power, Xavia's worshippers tend to execute heretics with nothing more than sunlight itself
>The very existence of vampires pisses him off
>Dislikes it when people sleeps during the day
>Depending on the circumstances of their fall, he may sympathize with fallen paladins and accept them in
>Considers himself morally superior to all of the other gods
>>44360529
I have a God who just wants to do good like his big bro, but the first time he tried it, he fucked up, and eventually wound up with only evil worshipers.
Since in my setting Gods can only know what's going on in the world via their worshipers or by talking to the other gods about what their worshipers said was going on (which doesn't happen often because they don't listen to each other and think all the other gods besides themselves are lying sacks of shit), he does what they want him to do thinking it's for the greater good, which in turn makes the world worse and brings him more evil worshipers.
So now the party is on a quest to the world's equivalent of Olympus to talk him out of fucking shit up.
>>44374354
Original tellings of the story, as I understand it, don't even have the snake as Satan - that came later. It started off just being a random talking snake.
>>44360529
God of Balance that must cause mayhem after nearly all of the evil in the world has been beaten.
What do the heroes do when they reach his emissary and find that he is simply trying to maintain a balance and is not truly evil?
Jurrl and Forwu
Sibling gods, Jurrl god of Idleness, Forwu goddess of Spite
Jurrl was a benign god, perfectly content to rest in obscurity after creation, his twin Forwu however despised this. She used her own followers to create an offshoot religion worshiping Jurrl as god of mercy and protection. Their prayers and pleading let him have no rest, so in his frustration he guided his flock towards suicidal tendencies and practices to drive off believers or kill them all off. Forwu's efforts spun this to look selfless and courageous, making Jurrl one of the most praised gods. Now he tries to help various cults and demons usher in the end of the world to get some piece and quiet.
>>44374108
>God is the creator and reason for everything.
>But not for evil.
Typical deluded christfag
>>44360529
>
in warhammer 1st ed : nekoho the sceptical god of atheist ...
>>44374354
He has given humans capital F Free Will. Free will is meaningless without the opportunity to fuck up. Thus, he has given Adam and Eve the opportunity to fuck up, and they did, even though they could have just not eaten the fruit.
>>44385128
I would love to hear some possible examples of what might happen to that kid, to be honest. Something about that particular situation really caught my interest.
>>44389819
Probably discuss the potential balance of quantity vs intensity of said required mayhem, and attempt to discern a compromise that would ultimately be the most tolerable for the world as a whole. But this assumes they are reasonable people. The god may already be carrying out the most optimal model that can be discerned, in which case the next choice (since polling the entire world for a reasoned opinion so everyone could weigh in would be impossible) would be how to spread the news of the necessity of what this god is doing, why, and to what extent, so as to prevent other would-be adventuring parties from taking an adversarial position.
>>44360529
Ranagol the Ram-headed
He is the god of reason and intellect, his followers have to reject their emotions and act on pure logic only.
If they commit a sin against his teaching they must sacrafice suffering to him (their own, or the suffering of others is also acceptable).
He is also a social darwinist advocating that more powerful "ascended" people have the right to rule over the rest, and considers the follower of any other god a heretic.
>>44391296
That really makes no fucking sense...
>>44391296
The fuck are you smoking?
>>44360529
Not-Lorkhan.
He created the material world, which is a problem for the setting's many Gnostics.
The Lord of Destruction, god of Death, Time, and Devastation. He seeks the absolute destruction of every living thing, down to the last molecule and preferably in the most gruesome and painful way possible. He represents the inevitable end of all things, and is responsible for the existence of undeath as a whole. Wherever his followers go, fire and screaming usually follow.
In addition to all of that, he is way pettier than anything with his amount of power ever should be. He manages to not only be a n absurdly powerful force of evil and destruction in the world, but a total dick and kind of a tool as well. He usually greets his dead followers with something akin to "HA HA YOU DIED LIKE A LITTLE BITCH" before either shoving their soul right back into there corpse or devouring it whole.
The only reason he hasn't brutally mauled all of existence is his unfortunate living situation. He is one half of the conjoined deity "The Lord and Lady," with his "sister" the Lady of Rebirth awkwardly fused to his spine (or him to her spine, it isn't really clear.) The pair exist as two enormous iron skeletons sharing a spinal column, with their skulls fused back-to-back. The pair have to take turns talking, their skull swiveling and revealing their faces one at a time. Seeing as how they look like skeletons, the only visual difference between the siblings is that the Lord has blue eyes, and the Lady has red eyes, a distinction that confuses most people who are unlucky enough to talk to them.
>>44391588
It seems to me like an edgy idea for the sake of being edgy, nothing more, or less. Or some kind of rather ill concived parody of something, but I'm not really sure what is the object of riddicule exactly.
>>44391612
Today, I'm not even sure if Gnosticism isn't overdone already.
I have it in my settings, but I'm starting to feel like it has became the go-to "trying to be smart about religion" scheme.
Zarus, a human-centric LE deity dedicated to uplifting the human race, and exterminating all other races. Followers have a specific hatred of half-breeds.
So, basically, /pol/
>>44391836
>So, basically, /pol/
>/pol/ is le strawman nazis
When will this meme die?
>>44391865
When it stops being true
>>44375172
Satan is the adversary, not an equal and opposite. He exists to challenge God as a kind of advisor. Remember Angels have no Free Will. All he did was ordained by god.
>>44391880
>stops being true
All the literal nazis have fled to 8gag. /pol/ is literally full of redditors that have turned the board from old-school right extremism to "LE BASH LE SJWS AMIRITE XDDDDDDD"
You can tell by the board's negative views on Chirstianity, friendliness towards drugs and prostitution and other non-/pol/ things.
Ephemera, NE god of the lost. Missing persons, vanished kingdoms, lost car keys...all are taken by him if they are gone long enough. All things he claims are taken to the Abandoned Demiplane, where they are forgotten and left to decay for all eternity. The only way to keep him from stealing that which you loved and lost is to lock or seal it.And that is why treasure is kept in chests.
>>44391865
When you /pol/yps stop bitching about "sheeple" and otherwise threatening to bully qt pa2t Satyroid.
I still don't get what Satyrs are supposed to get out of lying about moon landings, they're sun aspected peoples not lunar aspected ones.
In one of my previous campaigns, there was Zyzo, god of injustice.He was a Rakshasa that had died and was being reincarnated into the body of an infant god born of a goddess of justice and a god of slaughter. She aborted the infant, but because the Rakshasa had a cult that worshiped it, the baby already had some god-like powers due to having sufficient worshipers. Thus, rather than being obliterated, it was transported to the inside of a giant sphere that was like an egg for it, composed of bits and pieces of different universes shoved into one giant orb. On the outside of the orb were a number of big spikes. Those above water had fruit on them which, when consumed, caused the person to experience a feeling of bliss and a day to feel like hundreds of happy years. Needless to say, it was highly addictive. Because only a tiny portion of the orb was out of the water, it was believed to be an island and the spikes were believed to just be very strange trees. The party shit bricks when they realized it was a giant orb, and even more bricks when they realized that the orb was slowly rotating, fish cut by the spikes as they swam by were immediately stuck to the spikes that cut them, and there they rotted but didn't die, until they were brought above the water, at which point they turned into the fruit.The orb was an egg for Zyzo the Unborn, who had been growing within for eons, aware of the world around him, sending out telepathic messages and cultivating followers as he prepared to hatch.
>>44377917
That's a an old (but cool)idea. I think I like your execution, but the gods personalities (and power) should be subject to change based on how the mortals view and worship them. Mercurial beings based on kind of abstract thought.
Omniqwub K'nimnayuooh, The Man in the Mud.
Often depicted as a dirty little man, rolling in filth, Omniqwub's domain ranges a broad spectrum of concepts from feces, to awkward encounters, and incest. Generally he is the power that governs anything that is taboo or "cringey" yet not immediately harmful.
It is said that he was made to be a jester for the gods, and that he eventually was driven mad by his job. Those foolish enough to revere him find their days to be met only with an awkward kind of madness, wearing odd costumes and shitting themselves.
Unlike most gods of "madness" and "Chaos", Omniqwub's flavor of madness involves an unusually sobering dose of reality.
Fekkaph, patron god of mild annoyance and migraines
>>44386980
Winner.
And now I've got a bunch of other concepts to work off of with all the other guesses.
>>44385128
Good.
God of the monkey's paw.
>>44392770
Awesome, I loved the Elimist chronicles as well, pretty cool look at what happens when a human like rave that has more or less developed the means to play god, actually ascends top godhood.
>>44360529
3 gods of law
The first is neutral, is about logic, civilization, honor and doing your duty no matter what.
He has two disciples that deviated from his teachings:
One is good and deviates by being merciful.
The other, the evil one, deviates by being vengeful and petty.
>>44376236
He doesn't sound evil, only really OC about hygiene.
>>44391920
>You can tell by the board's negative views on Chirstianity, friendliness towards drugs and prostitution and other non-/pol/ things.
If those are the views the /pol/, the board, holds, then those are /pol/ things.
There was a time when /pol/ was dominated by libertarians.
>>44387182
no;
morality
is
subjective
>>44360529
I've got a life god that would count as evil, I guess. He's an ass that doesn't want to share with his twin sister, the goddess of death, so he works in secret to keep things from dying. Sounds not so bad, except he's not the god of growth and prosperity, so he doesn't really care too much about the being's state, just that they are alive. He's behind the undead in the setting.
>>44393173
Close enough. However, he's very much not the sort to cheat his clients. He answers prayers just well enough to get repeat customers.
>>44390524
One of this God's goals is to create a perfect form of the Undead, better able to mimic the functions of a proper biological lifeform and even grow and physically mature, and he uses resurrections to experiment with various aspects of the design. Unfortunately, there's usually some flaw in his creation, such as its physical growth and maturation going in an entirely inhuman direction from the seemingly normal starting point, and this is the source of many of the more advanced forms of Undead in the world.
On the positive note, you can be sure that the soul that's been returned to you is the the same soul you requested. As I said before, he doesn't cheat. That's not to say that the behavior is entirely unaltered, as just existing as one of his creations will often have negative effects on the personality and give them "unusual" predilections. That's not even mentioning the sort of instructions or teaching he may have given the soul while it was still in his grasp.
Maybe it's the sort of thing that might result in them eating the family pet, engaging in extremely violent outbursts, or developing sadistic tendencies, as a few examples. There's also a high chance that their flesh will feel "wrong", and they'll often absentmindedly tear at it only for it to grow back in some disturbing manner. This usually doesn't make them feel much better about it, and it's not like they're insensitive to pain either.
The fact that this person really is 100% guaranteed to be the genuine article probably just makes it worse. This isn't something else wearing their face and just pretending to be them. This isn't some demonic spirit with stolen memories, or a mere echo of their personality. This is the real person brought back as some sort of twisted monster, and you can't really undo what has been done to them at that point.
>Harayah, the God of Freedom, and Habasah, the God of Chains
A pair of deities. A LG God of Chains, a CE God of Freedom. The God of Chains sacrificed his own freedom in order to bind his brother, keeping him away from the world so as to save it from his wrath. The God of Freedom is an uncontrollable beast, a monster of insatiable hunger who would devour the world if allowed to be free. The followers of both gods come together in a balancing union, the God of Chains must be worshiped lest the bonds become weak, while the God of Freedom must also be given tribute lest he atrophy and slip from his bondage. Some of these gods’ worshipers slip away from the course of balance, as the Children of Freedom wreak havoc and anarchy across the face of the earth while the Children of Chains hunt them down and force them into servitude.
The Children of Chains are given the power to restrict and bind, while the Children of Freedom are slippery as fish, able to escape any form of imprisonment save that of the Children of Chains. Both branches draw in new converts in different fashions. The Children of Chains seek out a sacred number of converts to be taken either willingly or by chains, while the Children of Freedom gather all that they can before slaughtering down to the same number.
The leader of the faith is an ancient prophet who listens to both gods and maintains the balance between the two (True Neutral). Below the Prophet are the High Priests, one of Chains (LG; submission, Order) and one of Freedom (CE: anarchy, Chaos). Below these are the two flocks of worshipers. The Children of Chains, who bind themselves in flesh and spirit in order to further the perfect order of their God, and the Children of Freedom, who run wild and sow chaos in the name of the Beast. Both of these faiths share the same temples, divided into equal halves, each serving an equal number of followers.
>>44394413
In a past campaign, the party actually came across one of a divine relic of the pair, the Hand of Habasah / the Helm of Harayah.
Appears to be a simple unadorned Spiked Gauntlet and grants its wearer Smite Evil 1/day, as well Detect Evil at will which is far more likely to detect traces amounts of evil in a heart than the true ability. In addition, whenever the wearer would be dropped to or past 0 HP, he gains the benefit of the Diehard feat as well as a +4 enhancement bonus to Strength and Constitution. However, he loses the ability to concentrate on anything but fighting and targets the nearest available creature. This lasts for a number of rounds equal to his Constitution modifier, at the end of which the wearer falls unconscious.
In addition, the gauntlet grows while the wearer is unconscious, moving from gauntlet to that arm and shoulder to the chest to the other arm to the legs and finally to the head. Once the gauntlet has grown once, it may not be removed without Remove Curse or Wish. Each time the gauntlet grows, the Detect and Smite Evil begin to warp and shift as they begin to misread Good as Evil, until the abilities finally change to Detect Good and Smite Good. Likewise, the threshold to trigger the rage loosens. When the gauntlet has grown over both arms, the threshold is half of the wearer's total HP, and when the gauntlet has grown over the head, the rage is triggered by any HP loss inflicted by an enemy.
>>44394499
Pic very much related.
>>44394332
Oh, and if they end up killing their siblings or other children in a jealous rage or murdering their parents if they feel neglected or despised, that can't be entirely blamed upon the generous God who returned them to you. They might be more prone to that sort of thing, but it's not like they've been programmed to murder everyone they ever loved. They're just often extremely needy, unstable, and rather aware that they're different from everyone else.
Given the chance to grow, they'll often attempt to dominate their hometown and transform all of its inhabitants into more creatures like themselves, so they won't be alone in their predicament and the others won't be able to treat them unfairly since they'll all be in the same mess together. Well, with the exception that the original has probably made themselves the tyrannical ruler of all the others.
This thread is pretty great. Interesting stuff. I wonder if maybe we should give an 'usual good deities' thread a go after this one? Not sure if it would be as interesting... but then a number of things surprised me here.
>>44393824
Literally and by definition it's not.
Normative. Learn the meaning of that word. Preference is subjective, moral judgement is not.
>Dal'Markan, God of Stories
>Chaotic Evil
>very easily bored
>loves tales of good overcoming evil, and will send blessings to both the virtuous and villainous to fuel their conflicts and create clashes of legendary proportion
>of course, the more the odds are stacked against the hero, the greater their eventual triumph is, so his blessings are disproportionately awarded to the wicked
>at least he then takes those blessings away at dramatically appropriate moments
His influence is less felt in the world today as it's entered a Renaissance period; thus Dal'Markan is too busy admiring the plays and theater performances of mortals to put much work into his own.This was intentionally set up by the other gods, who feared his constant insistence on "raising the stakes" could really fuck the world up.
>>44385128
>>44394332
>>44394552
Anyhow, to sum this up, he'd probably be one of the good gods if he wasn't also an amoral sadist. Hell, he's the sort who would probably join the fight against the other forces of evil if he was called upon, as he has no loyalty towards evil as an ideal. He'd much rather just keep helping people in his own way. Really, that's probably why he always makes sure to create new problems for people whenever he solves their old one. You can't keep helping people if they don't have a fresh supply of new problems.
As for why anyone would worship him, it's really quite simple. Hardly anyone actually plans to worship him in the first place, it's just that his solutions always create new problems which require additional solutions. People start worshiping him because they're already too deep into the mess they started when they called upon him in the first place, and they don't know any other way to clean it up but to keep calling upon him again and again as each solution provides new difficulties.
God of atheism
This god is on the body of an adult guy and will die when the guy dies.
Before he was on this guy body on some sort of jesus christ thing, his essense was living on the universe since before the creation of things.
The power of this god is to make other gods doenst appear (as some example gods that can be first movers).
This guy (and the god essense) doenst know he is a god, and he is an atheist.
>>44383084
>Yes, this is a question that you need to answer before fully fleshing out your campaign.
Hard fantasy is a thing, and just few stuff is hard fantasy
What you ask for is to add what that tropes site call Deconstructed trope and Reconstructed trope
>>44391920
i-i never left
In my setting a small part of hell is ruled by the Great Mother of Succubi who made the Succubi.
The Great Mother has the same basic outlook on Creation as the Comedian from Watchmen and sends succubi out to corrupt and ruin lives; she doesn't get souls out of it, she just does it to spite Heaven and prove that their claims of a just and noble God are a lie.
>>44388597
comes up in image search m8
>>44374354
No, and the vast majority of Christianity understands that that story was not literal.
>>44364374
way to derail a legitimately interesting concept with your epic shitposting
>>44368215
I googled YV and found this song, in the process I forgot about this thread while I listened.
I came back, looked at the replies to the original post and read yours as that part of the song went by.
Sorry about the rambling post but that was some crazy coincidence.
>>44398029
There's a demon lord who is the norther of succubus already
>>44364444
nope
>>44361857
already worshiping / 10
Diyu, God of Reincarnation.
Diyu exists as the deified force of the desire to continue one's existence, for whatever reason it may be. Diyu allows one to return to the land of the living after death... for a price of one's previous life. That which they experienced in their old life will be taken away from them, and they must start over. Continue on with the cycle of falling short of something and having one desire to reincarnate. Diyu speaks to every one of those who die, personally, and seeks to find some reason for them to go back. And so long as this desire to reincarnate continues, the souls of the dead are stagnant. Diyu therefore fears those who have lived truly complete lives, those who truly have no regrets in passing. The more that are able to resist the desire to reincarnate, the weaker Diyu becomes.
To keep this cycle going, Diyu sometimes calls forth mortal Avatars of its will to "ensure" that there will be people who want to reincarnate when they die. The Avatars take many forms, have many faces, from warlords to bureaucrats, heroes to holy men. For every valiant adventurer struck down tragically, for every villain slain before they could realize their goals, healer that could not stop the spread of a plague, official whose cheating caught up with them, it is rumored Diyu influenced their fate.
The gods who care for the well-being of mortals despise Diyu for these manipulative actions, but have trouble acting against it due to its very nature: it will exist for as long as people wish to come back. So they do what they can to help improve the lives of mortals in some manner respective of them. It doesn't always work out, but little by little, progress is made. It is hoped that some day, Diyu's influence will be gone for good, and the dead will truly be able to rest.
>>44377063
>The God of Women
>he
>>44377704
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Che_Guevara
>>44377063
underrated
>>44360529
The God of Frustration.
In beings capable of processing emotion he intensifies feelings of despondency and, well, frustration, making them give up at every significant task they try to accomplish, although not to the point that they actually kill themselves, so that they live on to be hollow, worthless shells to the day they die.
He is especially attracted to people who are doing great deeds.
Most evil gods in this setting is rather mundane and admittedly not that interesting, though there is one unusual one. Vibikirizi, the Prankster Prince (sometimes Princess) and God (sometimes Goddess) of Laughter. Worshipped by pranksters, a clan of hedonistic vampires and the pumpkinheaded people, Vibikirizi approves of all kinds of fun, humor and comedy, regardless of how dark or harmless it is.
Part of the danger is in how unpredictable and wild he and his followers are. One moment one of his followers might harmlessly toss a pie on a king's face and audibly giggle about it, the other moment a group of his followers might heartily laugh about how an elderly woman fell for a prank that ended with her decapitated head landing on a kid's slice of birthday cake.
If you find something funny, Vibikirizi will find it funny too. Well, except for shitty jokes. Vibikirizi will even curse those who makes shitty jokes in his presence to a lifetime of getting pranked on until they git gud at not making shitty jokes.
