False god idea

[malloyd]

Originally Posted by b-dog

One other point about the false god and his cult. The false god is not like the typical demon lord that terrorizes the land, instead his cult just gains new followers and grows peacefully. The problem is that the cult members become damned and the false god takes their souls so good PCs will try to destroy the temples of false gods for this reason. The cult members will defend their temple however often with good people fighting other good people.

The thing is this seems to lead right back to real world lack of differentiation between good and evil, and straight up religious persecution.

The cult doesn't do anything noticeably evil in the world, but it's followers souls go to a different god when they die. And that's evil that needs to be stamped out because? Why don't other good but not our god cults need to be stamped out too?

[Dalin]

All of this comes down to whatever cosmology you setup for your game world, of course. I'm not 100% into the damned souls business, but I like to play up religion in my game worlds with plenty of intrigue and complexity.

I could see a fun campaign world being built on the idea that gods can subvert worshippers of other gods so there is a chance that splinter groups within any cult might actually be serving the wishes of a different divinity. You could even have a god kill or capture another god behind the scenes and then masquerade as the former deity. PCs could be hired to find out what's going on with the Temple of the Golden Sun. They used to be so sweet and selfless, but recently they've taken a harder edge. Rumors abound about internal strife (as priests with different moral compasses grapple with how to manage their god who seems to have a new personality). Could be a fun urban dungeon adventure for delvers who lean toward sneaking and puzzle-solving over straight combat.

A more sophisticated, campaign-length rendition might have multiple PCs connected to the subverted temple. Start the campaign with everything normal so the players get used to the status quo: go on quests against evil, heal up at their sponsor temple, etc. Then things start to get murky as new quests aren't quite as clean as they used to be. Maybe the party just rolls with it or maybe they investigate. Either way, things get darker with internal schisms, conflict with other cults, authorities involved, hired delver investigators, etc. Campaign finale could be springing the original god out of his/her/its prison or defeating the false god or finding holy relic MacGuffins that assist in doing the same.

[(E)]

I am using a religeous/cosmological setup in my game where 95% of the gods are part of a unified Pantheon and have communal worship by the masses. The other 5% are the forbidden gods and these include really evil gods, gods that were on the wrong side of a civil war and the goddess of mercy who accompanied them to their pseudo-prison.

[tanksoldier]

Originally Posted by b-dog

The false god dupes good people into worshipping him. He is not a god but a demon who bestows powers. The Divine has banished him to Hell so he is not of the same power as the Divine thus a false god.

A less-powerful god is a demi-god.

Gods vary in power in almost all pantheons and game systems.

If your demi-god has enough mana to grant his followers powers, spells and the like the technicality that he's granting mana instead of sanctity is a pretty fine line. I mean, what is sanctity anyway besides mana granted to specific people by a specific powerful being?

If you limited the distance that it could be granted, or the number of people or the amount (old school DnD only let demi-gods grant up to 3rd level spells to their worshipers) or perhaps if he was able to bestow Magery and give magical training... making his priests really mages... maybe.

The problem is that the cult members become damned and the false god takes their souls so good PCs will try to destroy the temples of false gods for this reason

What does being "damned" imply? Are the souls destroyed? Do they go somewhere else that others don't? Is it unpleasant there?

If worshipers don't KNOW what is happening to them that's one thing but few if any mythologies that involve selling souls allow the daemon/devil/Satan to lie about exactly what's happening. It has to be a free and willing choice or the bargain is invalid.

...which is no different than evil gods sending their worshipers to their evil, unpleasant afterlife. They trade power or pleasure in this life for misery in the next. They KNOW they worship the god of feeding people into woodchippers. It's what they expect. Heroes oppose such cults because of the harm they do in THIS life, not really because their worshipers get what's coming to them.

...and some evil gods reward their deceased worshipers as well as any good deity, maybe better. Sometimes the reward varies.
Perhaps if you were especially evil instead of being fed to a woodchipper for all eternity you get to do the feeding.

I don't really see a difference... UNLESS the worshipers are somehow unwitting victims. That could be interesting but probably wouldn't involve souls... maybe drain of the life energy of worshipers as a ritual under the guise of the "good god" and doing evil things with it?

[The Colonel]

Shouldn't be an issue with a deity level being being effectively a "false god" simply because it is not a member of the default pantheon and its followers do not venerate the civic gods. That, after all, was the Roman's charge against Christianity, Zoroastrianism, Judaism and several other religions - not that they had any particular animus against anyone else's praxis (although for understandable reasons, rumour of human sacrifice and cannibalism dogged the early Church) - but that followers of all these faiths refused to participate in the public cult and so treated "the gods" with disrespect.

What this actually means will be down to your cosmology - I have no idea what the Romans, for example, believed happened to the souls of those beholden to other gods and so not subject to Roman psychopomps or the judgement of Pluto. Perhaps the renegade deity is setting up its own afterlife - or, lacking psychopomps, all of his followers are prone to becoming lost souls... or maybe it just eats them. What does it mean to eat a soul? Is it destroyed or is it assimilated?

[demonsbane]

Originally Posted by malloyd

The thing is this seems to lead right back to real world lack of differentiation between good and evil, and straight up religious persecution.

It remembers to me instances like the one of the Midnight campaign setting concerning Izrador in disguise, or the return of the formerly dead god Helm after the Spellplague in The Forgotten Realms presenting doubts to some people along the same lines of this thread.

Originally Posted by Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide, p. 85

Is the Helm that has returned from death different from the god whose worship was familiar to me in my youth?

Originally Posted by The Colonel

What does it mean to eat a soul? Is it destroyed or is it assimilated?

It's an expression with at least a double meaning: the jaws of the gods are the jambs of the Sundoor, the door of heaven, for the already enlightened ones (or sometimes the virtuous ones if there's a moral angle), but otherwise it's assimilation in hell (damnation) and also, after certain duration, utter destruction or second death.

It's under this latter negative perspective that, for instance, the Devil is depicted as anthropophagous.

[b-dog]

I am sure that the false god depends upon which cosmology is used but the standard one where there is the Divine and then there is the Infernal which has been sent to Hell and is being punished is pretty much in line with what DF implies. If there were evil gods that had the same power as the Divine why would they be in Hell? Hell is a punishment and a place of torment. The fact that the Infernal is in Hell implies they are lesser in power than the Divine that sent them there. (Of course the Infernal could be gaining in power and maybe one day overthrow the Divine) if the Infernal was more powerful than the Divine it seems likely they would live in Heaven and punish the Divien in Hell.

Those beings sent to Hell are likely forbidden to be worshipped by the Divine so that means that those worshipping them are committing sins against the Divine. If a being from Hell claims to be a god then it is a false god because the Divine has likely forbidden mortals from worshipping those being who have been sent to Hell.

[demonsbane]

Originally Posted by b-dog

I am sure that the false god depends upon which cosmology is used (. . .) If there were evil gods that had the same power as the Divine why would they be in Hell? Hell is a punishment and a place of torment. The fact that the Infernal is in Hell implies they are lesser in power than the Divine that sent them there.

Just let me say that having Hell in opposition to the rest of the Divine is a very strong assumption, likely of some modern Christian denomination.

Even if it may be a sort of point of view, also in some ways present in Dungeons & Dragons —with that Blood War having besides the Nine Hells warring against the Abyss—, such an opposition isn't obvious nor it's there in other cultures, Hell being just a parcel of the Divine, even in the Old Testament, the parcel containing divine aspects of rigor, wrath and even power.

For instance, Yama is the Hindu God of Death, and he's also called Yamaraja or Dharmaraja since it's at the same time God of Justice, judging the souls of the dead and warding the Narakas or Hells along with other attendants.

Here you are also two quotes from the Holy Koran, in which the "gods" attending Hell are angels ("monotheistic" equivalents of "polytheistic" divinities), not "vile, inferior demons":

Originally Posted by Koran 74, 26-31

"(. . .) What will make you realize what hell is? / It leaves naught nor does it spare aught. / It scorches the mortal. / Over it are nineteen. / And We have not made the wardens of the fire others than angels."

Originally Posted by Koran 66, 6

"O you who believe! save yourselves and your families from a fire whose fuel is men and stones; over it are angels stern and strong, they do not disobey Allah in what He commands them, and do as they are commanded."

So, what I mean is that Hell isn't negative and horrible for purely divine entities, but for the creatures, according to "It is a terrible thing to fall into the hands of the Living God" (Hebrews 10:31).

But yes, it does depend upon the divine and cosmological assumptions you're using.

To me just works having an intermediate entity, like a demon, feigning to be a god.

[b-dog]

Yeah I guess it all depends on cosmology. Still I believe and evil god who ruled the world or at least part of it would not want to be in Hell. He would create a plane that was suitable for him instead of a place of suffering and torment.

My concept of the force of evil is that it does not create or have power of its own, instead it corrupts the power created by the Divine. For instance, mana is some sort of neutral spiritual energy while black magic is mana that has been corrupted by the force of evil. Mana was created by the Divine as part of Creation and was not created by the Infernal. Sanctity is the energy of spiritual beings that can be bestowed to worshippers. The spiritual beings were created by the Divine but some were corrupted by evil and now their Sanctity is unholy. Ultimately, if evil wins everything will become more and more corrupted until nothing exists. Evil can not create only destroy, corrupt or steal. Just as a vampire sustains itself on the life energy of the living or the evil cleric steals health from others.

[demonsbane]

Originally Posted by b-dog

My concept of the force of evil is that it does not create or have power of its own, instead it corrupts the power created by the Divine.

I agree with that; and after all, part of what I implied above is that Hell, in itself, isn't "evil", nor even a split of the divine reality, although those damned there experience it in such a way, while others must regard anything coming from Hell as straightforwardly negative and dangerous, because it is so for them.

Originally Posted by b-dog

The spiritual beings were created by the Divine but some were corrupted by evil and now their Sanctity is unholy.

This again remembers me the Unholy Might section of Dungeon Fantasy 3: The Next Level. It would have been nice to see it included in the Dungeon Fantasy RPG box.