Deicide - The alignment conundrum [3.5]

[Scarey Nerd]

OK, here's the issue at hand:

Our party in an evil campaign has wild notions that we might one day be able to destroy Heironeous, or failing that, weaken him enough with Epic spells etc that Hextor can destroy him once and for all. Because the destruction of Heironeous would upset the balance of Good and Evil, what would take his place? Our ideas were:

A) The person that killed him would take his place, their alignment would change to LG and they would be stuck in a form they detest.

B) One of his followers from his realm would assume his place, therefore rendering our mighty achievement a waste of time.

C) There would be nothing to take his place, and his portfolio would vanish into the ether, like he never was.

TL;DR What happens when an Evil guy/God kills a Good God?

Which, in your opinions, is correct?

[Gensh]

It's not canon for any setting if I'm not mistaken, but I've typically ruled that when a deity dies, their divine ranks are equally split among his/her/its killers and then s/his portfolio is divided among willing deities. This may or may not include any of the new gods. I never got a chance to run it, but I once wrote a d20 modern sequel campaign to a D&D campaign I ran based on how the players were part of a cult dedicated to having the son of the god of magic killing all the other gods and become a benevolent one-god. The point of this game was to try to figure out what went wrong with the other game after their characters died (which didn't finish).

[Scarey Nerd]

That sounds like an awesome campaign :smallsmile: It's a good system, too, I'm hoping my DM thinks along the same lines. Otherwise my Archivist of Hextor will become a Good person, and seeing as though he's spent his life torturing people for information, sustenance in some cases, and fun, being Good isn't on his agenda.

[Fishy]

Technically, Heironeous isn't just the generic god of LG-ness, even if he was designed that way. He's also a god of battle, bravery, judgment, strength, self-sacrifice, and living according to a code. In the event that Heironeous dies, 'honorable combat for the benefit of others' has failed in some cosmic mythological sense- but Honor, Combat, and Self-Sacrifice are all still around, and they all need to have gods.

The way I'd organize it in my pantheon, there has to be a god of Battle, but the universe at large doesn't much care whether that particular god favors chivalry and honor, strategy and tactics, beserker strength and rage, or horrific genocide. Likewise, there has to be a god of Fire, but that could be volcanoes and wildfires, the forge and the hearth, or the candle against the crushing darkness. Whoever is god at the time determines whether Fire is good or evil, or whether Battle is to be feared or glorified.

So Heironeous' portfolios get split up and go to other people- probably the killers get priority, then existing gods with very close portfolios, then ascended mortals. Hextor, being a god of battle who had a hand in his destruction, probably gets the lion's share, but no one has to change alignments.

(Stealing heavily from the Cryptonomicon's chapter on comparative mythology- excellent book, by the way. And Unseen Armies, I suppose. Also, I very much want a campaign based around killing Titans.)

[Person_Man]

If this were a Forgotten Realms campaign, then Lord Ao (the overlord god) would reassign his portfolio to another god, or elevate a mortal he felt was worthy.

I'd have to go re-read my Gygax to figure out what would happen in Greyhawk.

[Starbuck_II]

OK, here's the issue at hand:

Our party in an evil campaign has wild notions that we might one day be able to destroy Heironeous, or failing that, weaken him enough with Epic spells etc that Hextor can destroy him once and for all. Because the destruction of Heironeous would upset the balance of Good and Evil, what would take his place? Our ideas were:

A) The person that killed him would take his place, their alignment would change to LG and they would be stuck in a form they detest.

B) One of his followers from his realm would assume his place, therefore rendering our mighty achievement a waste of time.

C) There would be nothing to take his place, and his portfolio would vanish into the ether, like he never was.

TL;DR What happens when an Evil guy/God kills a Good God?

Which, in your opinions, is correct?

Any can occur. It depends.
2nd edition said A happened.
3rd edition said B happened.
4th edition says C happened.

Due to no magic god: spell plague happened.

So according to Canon: it depends.