Evil Deities & Their Followers

[Sol.Dragonheart]

I was recently contemplating the Evil aligned Gods and Goddesses in various settings and campaigns, and began to wonder precisely how they maintain a power base and further their interests, particularly in regards as to how they attract and solidify the loyalty of numerous followers. I especially wonder about those worlds in which deities garner their power in part or in full from the amount and strength of their followers, such as those in the Forgotten Realms.

While certain religious organizations like the Church Of Bane or other tyrannical deities are fairly straightforward in their methodology for gaining and retaining followers, through domination, fear, and forceful admonitions to worship, the more subtle deities methods of recruitment and retention intrigue me.

How precisely do deities like Shar, Cyric, and Talona attract and maintain large groups of worshippers, after all? And furthermore, how would such organizations integrate themselves into societies and civilizations with success?

I have also been considering the basic motivations and reasoning behind continuing to follow evil deities of any ilk if the D&D world in question has the standard afterlife ideologies, especially the higher ranking and more educated followers of those deities. Knowledge of the other planes and where the spirit departs to after life would be a known, codifiable fact for such people.

Indeed, once they achieved greater levels of power, they would even have the capability to visit the infernal and celestial planes and compare them from personal experience. What would compel any rational person to continue following the path of evil in this case, when the consequences for doing so are so obviously clear?

I simply wonder if the only real solution to the above problem, even discounting the former challenge of how more subtle evil religions would function in society, is to completely reinvent the cosmology of my worlds, or relegate those who worship evil deities to the status of the insane and foolish.

 

[gizmo33]

How precisely do deities like Shar, Cyric, and Talona attract and maintain large groups of worshippers, after all? And furthermore, how would such organizations integrate themselves into societies and civilizations with success?

Power would be one motivator. If you take Medieval Europe for example - the Christian Church was the one official religion, anything else was heresy (and "evil" by definition) and yet people dabbled in magic and all sorts of things - especially if it would produce a result that you couldn't produce through official channels.

So take an example from Poe's "the Raven" - a minor noble loses a loved one and the good clerics in the area (for whatever reason) can't raise her. Unwilling to accept defeat, he starts following rumors that other sorts of "power" exist. Eventually a cultist of Shar tells him about the Shadow-weave (or whatever) and makes future promises in return for the alliegence of the minor noble. Oh, and he has to promise the allegiance of his various followers as well (or at least on the ones he trusts). Etc. etc.

Indeed, once they achieved greater levels of power, they would even have the capability to visit the infernal and celestial planes and compare them from personal experience. What would compel any rational person to continue following the path of evil in this case, when the consequences for doing so are so obviously clear?

What are the consequences? IMC favored evil mortals become lesser demons/devils, and get to work their way up the heirarchy. Not such a bad fate when you compare it to having to serve Thor drinks and listen to him drone on about his exploits for all of eternity.

I simply wonder if the only real solution to the above problem, even discounting the former challenge of how more subtle evil religions would function in society, is to completely reinvent the cosmology of my worlds, or relegate those who worship evil deities to the status of the insane and foolish.

There's probably a little "insanity" that's the core of anyone who is evil. Then again, drive down the highway sometime and it's easy to come to the conclusion that such insanity is not totally outside the realm of possibility for humanity. Yes, a completely rational emotionally adjusted person does not choose evil as an alignment as defined by the rules, but that might be the point.

 

[gizmo33]

(more thoughts)
I think it was Milton who had one of his character's say "better to rule in Hell than serve in Heaven" or some such. Such sentiment apparently resonated with an audience who otherwise accepted the Christian conceptions of both Heaven and Hell. I don't know much about the time period/literature - but to me it could be an example of the sorts of places that human nature can lead you, and not necessarily to the Lawful Good planes.

And I think part of the problem you might be having is fundemental to the alignment system itself. It's hard to imagine large groups of people identifying themselves as evil. "Evil" is something that is overwhelmingly used to label other people in the real world AFAICT and yet in DnD it's considered the norm that someone can detect alignment on themselves and say "oh look, i"m evil, how about that". History, thus, has it's limitations in terms of how to design a fantasy world to deal with this issue.

 

[Sol.Dragonheart]

I have actually mostly eliminated the alignment system from my games, so I suppose a clearer definition of what I am talking about would be entering the service of a deity who is using you to further their own ends, which are generally destructive and nihilistic from what I have observed of the standard D&D evilly aligned deities, rather than serving a deity who will geniuinely reward you for your service to them.

I suppose this would become even more of an issue when comparing evil deities to neutral deities, rather than evil to good, as serving a neutral deity does not necessitate being an altruistic and caring person.

Your point about servants of the evil deities becoming creatures of power in the lower planes, and Milton, are well taken, however, as is your point that truly rational beings may not, in fact, ever serve the forces of evil in an active role outside of their own selfish desires.

 

[s.j. bagley]

speaking as a player who plays a character with an evil patron, i think it can lead to interesting role playing.
my rogue in the forgotten realms is chaotic neutral, but worships talona and has since he was younger and a good portion of the townsfolk where he lived were killed by a plague sent by her.
since he sees himself as having been spared her wrath, i felt it made sense for him t venerate her.
other than that, i can only assume that evil gods develop cults based on simple fear and.or greed.

 

[gizmo33]

I am talking about would be entering the service of a deity who is using you to further their own ends, which are generally destructive and nihilistic from what I have observed of the standard D&D evilly aligned deities, rather than serving a deity who will geniuinely reward you for your service to them.

Why wouldn't an evil deity genuinely reward a character who served him? I'm not sure I see nihilism in the faith of Shar, for instance (who I'm only generally familiar with from modules and stuff). Yes, a deity who says "I want to kill everyone and make them suffer, including my followers" would have a hard time recruiting anyone that wasn't insane - but for the example deities you gave I don't see it being an issue.

I suppose this would become even more of an issue when comparing evil deities to neutral deities, rather than evil to good, as serving a neutral deity does not necessitate being an altruistic and caring person.

No, but people don't serve deities in order to be caring/altruistic. A deity of fortune, for example, might be CN - service would be in order to gain bonuses. A farmer would serve a neutral deity in order for it to rain.

Your point about servants of the evil deities becoming creatures of power in the lower planes, and Milton, are well taken, however, as is your point that truly rational beings may not, in fact, ever serve the forces of evil in an active role outside of their own selfish desires.

Yes, I think most service of evil would be for selfish ends - even if such things were postponed during some sort of trial period (the noble in my example would probably have to perform a number of evil deeds before he could hope to have the goddess resurrect his lost love).

However, I can think of one evil "philosophy" that might transcend just selfish ends, and that is a characature of the Nietzsche philosophy. Good coddles the weak, and therefore is an overall detriment to society. The fear of being brutalized by your superiors causes people to work harder to become a superior. The weak implicitly accept their station in life as being their own fault. Important note: I'm not saying that this actually is someone's real world philosophy, but it's been put in the mouths of enough fantasy characters to give you the idea of what was intended.

And that brings up a number of points - fantasy by it's nature draws some pretty stark lines and turns the subtleties of real life into black and white issues. Good guys and bad guys. I think you'd be hard pressed to design a fantasy world with such stark divisions like good and evil and yet everyone has completely recognizable human motivations. I think the more "human" you make your human NPCs, the more ambigious, and less fantasy, your fantasy world becomes. So to some extent, maybe evil people are evil because they want to be that way, and if they thought of things the same way you did, you'd all have the same alignment.

One of the philosophies of the modern world is that everyone is basically the same and their environment and choices determine their fate. This may, fundamentally, NOT be the case in a fantasy world.

 

[Sol.Dragonheart]

Shar is actually fairly nihilistic. If she had her way, all light, including the star that warms Toril, and by extension, life on Toril itself, would not exist. Talona furthers the spread of disease and plague, causing destruction to virtually all life. Cyric I can comprehend a self serving character worshipping, especially considering how invaluable his areas of dominion are to those seeking to gain positions of power in the political sense.

That's a good point about the philosophies an evil character might hold, in any case. I also have to agree that an evil deity would have no compunction against rewarding faithful service, especially when it furthers their own ends to have powerful servants. On a personal level, I can certainly see why people might follow an evil deity, yet I still consider how certain deities such as Talona or Shar might successfully integrate themselves into society as a whole, to gain worshippers on a larger scale.

 

[Kahuna Burger]

Why wouldn't an evil deity genuinely reward a character who served him? I'm not sure I see nihilism in the faith of Shar, for instance (who I'm only generally familiar with from modules and stuff). Yes, a deity who says "I want to kill everyone and make them suffer, including my followers" would have a hard time recruiting anyone that wasn't insane - but for the example deities you gave I don't see it being an issue.

I agree that its odd to assume that evil dieties don't at least claim they will reward their followers - maybe they're lying but hey, they're evil.

Two other points - an evil deity may have a portfolio that attracts non evil worshippers. In the STAP for instance, my DM described one of the evil Olman deities as also playing the role of tribal protector in their pantheon. This put my good cleric in a quandry of not feeling she could assume his clerics were evil beings, as one could reasonably expect a greater than average number of lawful neutral followers who took on the more martial clerical duties. Your average neutral aligned soldier may easily follow an evil deity with a war and strength portfolio, because that deity has what he's asking for when he needs a deity, while fully accepting that the company doctor follows a goddess of markedly different outlook.

Second, consider racial and regional deities. Just as someone on the OOTS thread pointed up Redcloak's evil at wanting to wipe out civilians of his racial enemies, yet he is clearly capable of quasi-good behavior when dealing with his own race, there are probably many evil racial deities whose evil lies in their genocidal leanings rather than a desire for their own people to suffer. (Frankly, I'm not sure any deities which are strongly racially aligned should be good (vs neutral with a heavy leaning towards good clerics), but if they aren't actively promoting genocide of another race, I let it slide. ) Why would a goblin not follow the deity which legendarily fathered his race, or an Omian not follow a god that promises to place the world at his people's feet?

 

[Nifft]

Eberron has a nice take on this.

People don't venerate the evil gods so much as they 'pay tribute' in order to avoid that god's ill attention.

Someone evil (or even non-evil) might call on an evil god for the power to to curse a foe. You could play someone "specialized" in such curses, and effectively "draw power" from an evil god without thinking of yourself as a worshiper.

Cheers, -- N

 

[Ankh-Morpork Guard]

Something I go with in my homebrew is the idea that the Gods need followers for their power. Without any followers, a Deity has nothing at all.

Of course, I leave it as more of a general idea to explain away why nihilistic deities would actually have followers rather than any written rules for it. So, basically, someone like Shar who wants everything dead might lie to her followers and tell them she'll let them live or something similar to get them to follow her.