Roleplaying Neutral clerics of Evil gods

[Agnostik]

First off, this is my first post in this section, so feel free to tell me if I should have brought this up in another section (or not at all :smalltongue:).

Most Evil deities allow Neutral priests, and I've had half a mind to try making such a character myself, but I just can't wrap my head around the morality and personal beliefs of such cleric. Some (if not most) Evil gods in D&D are so undeniably, positively Evil with a big E that it's not conceivable to me how a Neutral character may even consider worshipping such deities. Moreover, I don't see it being an issue in Neutral-Good interrelationship, which is much easier to rationalize.

I can imagine a Chaotic Neutral priest of Talos, for example, who's more devoted to the storm and chaos aspects than outright malicious destruction that screams "Evil". That is a decent if not overly believable rationalization. But I'm having a much harder time figuring out how a Neutral cleric of, say, Loviatar or Malar would act like.

In short, whenever I try to imagine what roleplaying a Neutral cleric of an Evil good would be like, it all boils down to some chump who's not in complete agreement with tenets of his deity or even struggles to keep faith and fulfill his duties. Maybe I'm just too much of a goody-two-shoes for this.

Anyone has any interesting experience roleplaying such characters? I'd be very interested to hear it.

I might just lurk in this thread for a while and read, rather than answer to each post. The main idea is to get the discussion on the subject going. Also, excuse my poor English.

[Crasical]

Having your character be from a sect that emphasizes certain parts of the tenants over others is certainly possible, and gives a certain air of legitimacy to the PC if there are others out there doing it. I remember playing a cleric of Tiamat once, who listened to the 'Don't forgive any slights against you' and 'Wealth is it's only reward, hoard it' commandments and downplayed the 'take what you want from others' aspect. He was a stingy bastard who never payed for anything if he could avoid it, and his compulsive need to get payback for offhand insults led to an escalating insult and prank war with some NPCs, but he was mostly a greedy treasure hunting dude instead of a rampaging monster.

[NamelessNPC]

I guess it depends on the deity, but I would roleplay it as someone extremely egoistical, completely focused on himself, and being prejudicial to others only when it would benefit him, not out of cruelty. He doesn't hate others, he just loves himself so much that other people don't care.

[hymer]

I played a cleric like that once. He was more focused on the praying and the ceremony. If asked or challenged, he behaved according to his deity's wishes, but his usual mode was neutral. He was quite civilized and a considerable asset to his god's spreading into new territories.
I once played a Wee Jas cleric for about three sessions, and he was LN in practice. Actually, it was quite easy. LN and LE are not that far apart, LN just lacks selfishness.

Aside from that, I agree with the idea of some division of the faith that focuses on something other than most.

[docnessuno]

Expanding from one of the gods you named, Loviatar:

Among other things Loviatar is the patron of child birth, so it woudn't be uncommon for midwives to worship her.
Also the whole concept of "enlightment trought pain and suffering" in not innherently evil, and is reflected also in many RL religions.

The main difference between Loviatar and Ilmater (the other god of pain and suffering in FR) is that Loviatar despises those who help others, but that can be also rationalized as "depriving" them of their own path to enlightment.

"Pain tests all, but gives strength of spirit and true pleasure to the hardy and the true."

[Piggy Knowles]

There's nothing that says you have to LIKE a god in order to worship it. Worship can be based off of fear, or respect, or many other forms of devotion.

A neutral cleric can worship an evil, fell god in hopes to appease it, to keep it at bay. Perhaps a neutral dwarven cleric of Abbathor offers sacrifices of blood and gems on the equinox to his cruel deity in an effort to keep the peace in his community, and because of this, draws power from him. Maybe a CN tribal priest worships Erythnul because he respects his war-prowess, and wishes to draw that strength from him. Perhaps I am a LN cleric of Gargauth whose goal is to offer what payment I can in order to keep him at bay.

[willpell]

I have a Half-Dragon CN cleric of Erythnul who believes absolutely that social Darwinism is for the benefit of all. Her ethos sounds like this. The strongest are the only ones who can be trusted to have honestly earned the right to lead and protect the weak; the weak are parasites who will take food and such away from the strong, betray them out of fear, bring diseases to lay them low, or simply distract them at a critical moment. The strong should survive and flourish to have children who are also strong, and will grow ever stronger; letting weakness survive is like choosing to have cancer, it's not doing anyone a favor. Help the weak to grow strong if you can, but do not tolerate them if they refuse; kill anyone who thinks they're entitled to something and doesn't have the power to back that opinion up, lest they recruit others to help them implement their twisted ideals.

I've also done a Neutral cleric of Tharizdun, though that doesn't really count since Tharizdun isn't evil in my campaign, more like a force of nature. But his non-evil clerics (True Neutral or Chaotic Neutral; he's a weird exception to the usual alignment rules because he doesn't properly count as any alignment in my game) believe that destruction is healthy, that it leads to renewal and keeps people from taking things for granted until they rot away from neglect.

My portrayal of Kurtulmak is extremely sympathetic to non-Evilness; he's strongly more Lawful-leaning, apart from a vindictiveness and aggression reflex that is partially born from the instinctive desperation and paranoia that his children have learned over the aeons due to their small size and weak bodies. His Neutral Evil clerics lean hard on the "get 'em before they get you" end of the scale, while his Lawful Neutral ones are very much more "build strong alliances to protect the tribe, don't trust anyone but don't invite aggression by being openly distrustful either, just watch your back and be ready to do whatever's necessary".

I'm also quite comfortable with the idea of Lawful, Chaotic, or even True Neutral clerics of most of the undeath-related gods, other than Orcus and probably Nerull, even if the god is NE and thus not properly allowed to have TN clerics. At the very least, such a character is permitted to be "evil on paper" but do whatever they want without having to keep their Villain Card up-to-date, while other characters who want to draw power from an Evil god may have to prove themselves sufficiently ruthless/sadistic/etc. or he'll cut them loose (with a literal cut). Undeath isn't considered terribly awful in my game; it's contrary to life and tends to come with an undercurrent of hatred for it, but the two are capable of maintaining a "do-or-do-not-live and let do-or-do-not-live" attitude. (My campaign is big on reinterpreting the classic cliches, and this is a huge one; the search for immortality has been such a huge part of humanity's motivation that I find it impossible to believe humans would turn up their noses at lichdom or the like, so rather than force them all to be evil, I loosen the restrictions a bit. Wights and Wraiths and the like are still likely to be powered by Evil, but others are more open to interpretation.)

By the way, I also feel compelled to mention my single favorite deity from Deities and Demigods, Hecate of the Olympian Pantheon, who is about as non-evil as an Evil god can get. She's nasty to those who cross her and occasionally kills random people as a reminder that life is fragile, but for the most part she is called upon for protection and for power that can be used for any purposes one deems proper, and so I completely believe Neutral characters or even Good ones could worship her without any difficulty. It could be argued that she fits TN better than E, but I like the symmetry of her being an Evil but compassionate moon goddess while Pelor is a notoriously judgmental and monomaniacal Good sun god. It plays well into the subversion that I like to do in my campaign. For the moment I have her as TN on my campaign's chart, but only because I had too many other Evil gods and she was the least committed to that alignment; I really want to slide her back into Evil just for the symmetry of it, and because I don't otherwise have a female deity for NE.

And thanks to whoever mentioned Loviatar's philosophy; I am now comparing her to Lilith in "Vampire the Masquerade", and finding that I enjoy the parallel immensely. I'll probably roll these traits into Hecate for my game since I don't want to expand the pantheon, but in the unlikely event I play Forgotten Realms enough to get tired of Sune and Shar, I'll definitely be giving Lovi a look.

[Kuulvheysoon]

In Lisa Smedman's series "House of Serpents", the main character meets a cleric of Talos who worships the god to PREVENT him from lashing out at the undeserving. I'd imagine much the same is possible of clerics of Umberlee.

Garyx (the CE dragon god of destruction and fire) is also the god of Renewal, and the fluff states (In Draconomicon, at least) that some druids who worship him focus on that.

[ericgrau]

What makes it worse is that clerics fall if they go strongly against their god's ideals, not if they go against any particular alignment. Focusing on certain aspects of the deity to follow and being careful not to oppose the rest could do it.

But if it's the evil god of stopping everything heroic, you need either a different deity or a nongood party.

[Medic!]

I'm having a brain-fart on the name, but the cleric from the first book of the Cleric Quintet was a cleric of Talona, but saw Talona as nothing but a means to an end, a tool to channel divine power from.

[Careless]

I'm having a brain-fart on the name, but the cleric from the first book of the Cleric Quintet was a cleric of Talona, but saw Talona as nothing but a means to an end, a tool to channel divine power from.
His name was Barjin. He was weird, with his worshipping Talona, but he seemed like he was trying to bring his old god (was he a follower of Zhengyi/Orcus who was trying to bring them back? Because that's what it seemed like he was, but that seems like a pretty weird thing for a cleric to be doing) That was a little off-topic, sorry.

[Medic!]

THANK YOU! :smallsmile:

It's not neccessarily off-topic, that could be a good angle for a neutral cleric serving an evil god...trying to accumulate the needed power/macguffin/what-have-you to bring back an ancient god etc etc (or become a new one?)

[Kuulvheysoon]

THANK YOU! :smallsmile:

It's not neccessarily off-topic, that could be a good angle for a neutral cleric serving an evil god...trying to accumulate the needed power/macguffin/what-have-you to bring back an ancient god etc etc (or become a new one?)

You might find some use from Lost Empires of Faerun. There's stuff for worshipping 'dead' gods, and the feat Heretic of the Faith. Worth looking into here, methinks.

[Lonely Tylenol]

It would not be unheard of (or even uncommon) for a god of death or destruction to be worshipped as the necessary part of a cycle by people who are not innately evil in any way. See: Hinduism.

[Morithias]

One of my favorite Neutral Clerics of an evil "god" is a cleric of Bel, who simply believes one (or more) of the following.

1. Tyranny is better than total destruction (aka it's better for the devils to win the blood war than the demons)

2. The devils aren't likely going to win the blood war anytime soon (seriously did anyone back in 3.5 think that Asmodeus was going to just randomly become a god and end the war like that).

3. They just want to fight, and why not fight in the biggest craziest war in existence.

It helps is that Bel is one of the few demon or devil lords whose dogma one can actually understand and support even if you're a good person. "We don't want the demons to swarm reality and destroy everything" is a pretty damn good dogma even if the patron is a devil.

[GreenSerpent]

I have a TN worshipper of Shar (he's not a Cleric, but a Bard, and needs to worship Shar to get access to Shadow Weave Magic).

He's focusing more on the aspect of Shar as "secret knowledge", seeing himself as an unearther of secrets. Fits in quite nicely with his background (Lantanna worship Azuth, God of Knowledge)!

[Ranting Fool]

I have stuck a few Neutral clerics of evil gods in from time to time though most rarely get much "screen time" as the party never trusts them. CN Goblin Favored soul who follows the goblin god (With a name I don't remember and can't say)

I would think LE Gods such as Hextor would work as you could focus a bit more on the Lawful side of things "Might is Right" kind of thing.

Though far more often I end up having Neutral clerics of Good Gods. Someone who follows the letter of their gods laws of niceness but avoids the intent. Chuck in some bigotry and conflicts of interests and you have a nice BBEG who isn't evil for the PC's to deal with.

[willpell]

Hextor is a big one in my campaign. Many, many otherwise reasonable individuals figure that a tyrant can keep order better than a nice person; they support Hextor while hoping fervently that none of his agents come anywhere near where they live and work. "May you gain the notice of those in high places" is a curse according to this way of thought.

[Acathala]

I had a drow CN cleric of Selvetarm whom was all about the fight, and actually had a semi code of honour. He challenged a superior whom was going to execute a prisoner, that my cleric had fought well. He won, and Drow being Drow took said prisoner as a slave.