Deities of Death

[fanboy2000]

So, I was playing the human fighter this Saturday at a local store's World Wide D&D Game Day event. The DM started us off in town and asked what we were doing. Looking at my character sheet, I noted a quote about sending people to the Raven Queen. So I said I was looking for a temple or something to her to give some money. (No money was listed on the sheet, but me and the DM agreed I probably had a few gp to spare.) The other players chimed in that the Raven Queen was evil. One even said "yeah, she's technically unaligned, but she's really evil." The DM agreed and said I wasn't going to find a temple there.

I went along with it and did something else. However, I find this attitude interesting because she's a goddess of the dead in the default setting. For a while, it seemed to be a policy that all deities of death were evil. I remember a Dragon article about various mythologies and Hades was listed as evil. Personally, I would have described Hades as grumpy and ill tempered, but not evil. IIRC, this seemed par for the course.

So, I'm wondering what the perceptions of ENWorlders are towards Deities of Death.

Anyways, to help with the image problem Deities of Death have, I'm offering my own solution: Cinnamon, Goddess of The Other Side.

Cinnamon is the Lawful Good Goddess of The Other Side. When someone dies, their soul goes to the plane of Scrumdillyious. (Scrum-dill-ee-oh-shus) There she personally tells the new soul that it is special "just for being you" and welcomes them to The Other Side. The soul then spend four days frolicking in the forest. After that, each soul is given a guide to take them to their new life with the god or goddess they worshiped while living. If they were atheistic or agnostic, then the soul is allowed to remain with Cinnamon and help her with the afterlife. Or, if they so choose, they can be re-incarnated.

 

[Lancelot]

Depends on the deity.

I consider the Raven Queen, Kelemvor, Osiris, Hades, etc to be the "uncaring" (unaligned) gods of the dead. They do their jobs, and they don't actively solicit new souls for their domains. Everyone's going to end up there anyway. They despise undead (who are trying to avoid their natural fate) and necromancers (who meddle with the natural order). Both are good story-hooks for heroic characters. Their followers also perform necessary functions like funeral rites and gravedigging.

...and then there are the evil gods of the dead: Nerull, Hel, Bhaal, Orcus, etc. They're greedy and always out to increase the souls in their domains. Clearly not a good choice for heroic adventurers.

 

[ppaladin123]

Those players may have been influenced by the flavor text in the side bars in Divine Power. In a couple of those the Raven Queen is presented as scheming, power hungry, resentful of the other gods, and engaged in a cold war (literally) with Pelor over the seasons. I remember a few posts on the wizards boards about this. People were upset because her description clearly veered into evil territory for some in a few places.

 

[Hellzon]

Funny, I've seen the neutral death goddess and her clergy as the people who perform death rites and comfort the grieving relatives. Neutral, but decent people in the big scheme.

Mind, this started back when she was called Wee Jas and wasn't nearly as fleashed out in the core books as the Raven Queen is.

 

[Amphimir Míriel]

Read Speaker for the Dead by Orson Scott Card for an example of how an unaligned Priesthood of the Dead might work

 

[fanboy2000]

Those players may have been influenced by the flavor text in the side bars in Divine Power. In a couple of those the Raven Queen is presented as scheming, power hungry, resentful of the other gods, and engaged in a cold war (literally) with Pelor over the seasons. I remember a few posts on the wizards boards about this. People were upset because her description clearly veered into evil territory for some in a few places.

Ah, there we go. Figures, the one 4e book I don't buy. Thanks for the explanation.

 

[delericho]

I think there's likely a difference between the 'truth' of a death god and the way (s)he is perceived - at best, a death god is likely to be viewed as a necessary but unpleasant fact of life. (Even so, I would be surprised that the Raven Queen not have temples - presumably the people of the campaign world would be quite keen to see their loved ones properly interred, in order to avoid the risk of undeath, and that would be the purview of the Raven Queen.)

I think there's an argument for death gods of all alignments. There's also a strong argument for a setting with multiple competing death gods. It all depends on the DM and the setting.

 

[Voadam]

Depends on the deity and the mythology.

Norse:

Hel: Evil.

Freyja and Odin not evil.

FR:

Myrkull: Evil

Kelemvor: not evil.

Greyhawk:

Nerull: Evil

Wee Jaas: minorly evil

Egypt:

Anubis and Osiris: not evil

etc.

 

[Jshock_75]

Anyways, to help with the image problem Deities of Death have, I'm offering my own solution: Cinnamon, Goddess of The Other Side.

Cinnamon is the Lawful Good Goddess of The Other Side. When someone dies, their soul goes to the plane of Scrumdillyious. (Scrum-dill-ee-oh-shus) There she personally tells the new soul that it is special "just for being you" and welcomes them to The Other Side. The soul then spend four days frolicking in the forest. After that, each soul is given a guide to take them to their new life with the god or goddess they worshiped while living. If they were atheistic or agnostic, then the soul is allowed to remain with Cinnamon and help her with the afterlife. Or, if they so choose, they can be re-incarnated.

Ugh, as a side effect, you come back to life with diabetes...

The RQ is kind of an odd duck, when you think about it; she's a death goddess, but they haven't explained just why she's a death goddess (I don't have Divine Power though - maybe they explain it in there). For instance, Hades was only lord of the underworld because he (literally) got the short end of the stick when they were splitting up domains after the titans were defeated. Anubis is a judge of the dead; he decides if you are worthy of a good afterlife or a bad one. So if you can answer the question of why a god fits into the pantheon, you have a better idea of what there personality is.

 

[fanboy2000]

Ugh, as a side effect, you come back to life with diabetes...

Everyone has their own personal hell.