The Divine Equation

[Drakevarg]

I've been poking around with the cosmology of my setting a bit, and have been contemplating the idea of the divine balancing act. Thing is, in my setting gods don't gain any power from their worshipers, but instead use them as a way to control events when direct intervention is blocked by another god (which it almost always is). Trying to come up with the relationships of all the gods (30 gods across three pantheons thus far) in a way that ultimately renders all of them more or less impotent without their followers is harder than it sounds.

So this got me thinking: the normal setting probably doesn't sit back and think about this that much, since gods are often thrown in by the dozen with every new splatbook.

So the question I have is: if you reduced the entire pantheon of vanilla 3.5 into an equation, taking into account the relationships the gods have with each other and their divine ranks and such, what would come out the other end? Are the heavens deadlocked or, mathematically speaking, should one eventually come out on top either through sheer power or process of elimination?

[Douglas]

I have no idea.

The idea I'm planning to use for my homebrew setting is that if the gods did go full scale direct intervention, the resulting war would cause literally the entire setting to become collateral damage. I'd say this actually happened once, and it ended with all gods on both sides signing a treaty to restrict their conflict to using followers as intermediaries.

[NichG]

I can approximate this answer. Roughly speaking, every distinct race that has received face-time in vanilla 3.5 gets its own set of gods. This highly weights the balance towards evil if all gods are equal.

The rationale is as follows. There are almost no 'always good' races in vanilla 3.5. There are however a number of 'always evil', 'usually evil', or 'monstrous' races: orcs, goblins, kobolds, gnolls, drow. These races tend to have an overabundance of evil in their pantheons compared to good, even if they have one token good god (i.e. the drow have Lolth, Ergosal, Vhaeraun, Kiaransalee, Ghaunadaur, and Selvetarm plus more I'm probably missing on the evil side; and Elistrae on the good side).

The 'goodly' races usually have a moderately balanced pantheon, with neutral, good, and evil gods. Elves, humans, dwarves, halflings, and gnomes have decently developed pantheons. I'm not sure if e.g. goliaths or half-dragons or so on do though.

So you're adding (roughly) zero for each 'goodly' race, and a systematically negative (well, evil) number for each monstrous/evil-tending race. So by the numbers, evil wins (at least in total number, if not in total divine rank).

[Slipperychicken]

Sum(Good Power) +/- F = Sum(Evil Power)

Sum(Law Power) +/- F = Sum(Chaos Power)

OR

Sum(Evil Power) +/- (-F) = Sum(Good Power)

Sum(Chaos Power) +/- (-F) = Sum(Law Power)


Sum(Good Power) >0
Sum(Law Power) >0
Sum(Evil Power) >0
Sum(Chaos Power) >0

Let F= Fate, which is the difference between two opposing sides of an alignment axis. This includes things like Adventurers and luck. Fate will always improve/decrease one of law/chaos and one of the good/evil at the same time (i.e. it might increase Law and Evil simultaneously, or Goodness and Chaos simultaneously, but never Law and Chaos simultaneously, never Good and Evil simultaneously, and never just one axis).


[No alignment force can be truly destroyed, only weakened]

Eldritch Horrors, Far Realm, and dead/sleeping Gods are external to the equation, as they do not contribute to alignment power. Once they wake up, however, is a different story. Neutral entities may contribute to any of the alignment axes.

It's more of an equilibrium than an equation; things can be out of balance for a time, but Fate will ultimately tend the universe toward equilibrium. If things are too Good and too Lawful for too long, Evil and Chaos will rise, possibly going past the balance point and into "too evil" territory for a while to balance things out. Sort of like a supply and demand; the forces will, all else equal, mostly hover around equilibrium.

Numbers are irrelevant. Power is what matters.

[Jarveiyan]

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[rockdeworld]

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The way I imagine it, the Deities of D&D don't really do anything. Sortof like the Ellimist and Crayak in Animorphs, they play a game with people just to see who wins.

[Madara]

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Real-world religions (including religious reactions to gaming)
Emphasis on Real-world. The D&D pantheon is perfectly acceptable to be talked about.

Now, on to the topic at hand. Wotc favors good over evil. So I think that good would come out ahead. But you could probably compare using diety ranks, so you could use actual numbers.

[Drakevarg]

Let F= Fate, which is the difference between two opposing sides of an alignment axis. This includes things like Adventurers and luck. Fate will always improve/decrease one of law/chaos and one of the good/evil at the same time (i.e. it might increase Law and Evil simultaneously, or Goodness and Chaos simultaneously, but never Law and Chaos simultaneously, never Good and Evil simultaneously, and never just one axis).


[No alignment force can be truly destroyed, only weakened]

This is adding irrelevant forces to the thought exercise. "Fate" is a narrative contrivance to assure that conflict will never be resolved. The question I'm asking is, mathematically speaking, what SHOULD happen, discounting the plot making up excuses for the story to keep going?

[Madara]

Ok

Greater Dieties
[TN]Boccob, god of magic, arcane knowledge, balance and foresight.
[CG]Corellon Larethian, god of elves, magic, music, and arts.
[NG]Garl Glittergold, god of gnomes, humor, and gemcutting.
[CE]Gruumsh, god of orcs. (also a monster power)
[LG]Moradin, god of dwarves. (also a demihuman power)
[NE]Nerull, god of death, darkness, murder and the underworld.
[NG]Pelor, god of sun, light, strength and healing. More humans worship Pelor than any other deity.
[LN]Wee Jas, goddess of magic, death, vanity, and law.
[LG]Yondalla, goddess of halflings. (also a demihuman power)

Intermediate deities

[NG]Ehlonna, goddess of forests, woodlands, flora & fauna, and fertility.
[CE]Erythnul, god of hate, envy, malice, panic, ugliness, and slaughter.
[TN]Fharlanghn, god of horizons, distance, travel, and roads.
[LG[Heironeous, god of chivalry, justice, honor, war, daring, and valor.
[LE]Hextor, god of war, discord, massacres, conflict, fitness, and tyranny.
[CG]Kord, god of athletics, sports, brawling, strength, and courage.
[TN]Obad-Hai, god of nature, freedom, hunting, and beasts.
[CN]Olidammara, god of music, revels, wine, rogues, humor, and tricks.
[LN]Saint Cuthbert, god of common sense, wisdom, zeal, honesty, truth, and discipline.

Lesser
[NE]Vecna, god of secrets

I'll throw in alightment tags, but it is probably based on opposed viewpoints. Note: I'm sticking to core, since that's easier.

Ok. Let's assign points to the gods. 1 for Lesser, 2 for Intermediate, 3 for Greater. First we'll start with Good vs Evil. I'll only list participants that have one of the two alignment tags.

[CG]Corellon Larethian (3)+ [NG]Garl Glittergold (3) - [CE]Gruumsh (3) + [LG]Moradin (3) - [NE]Nerull (3) + [NG]Pelor (3) + [LG]Yondalla (3) + [NG]Ehlonna(2) - [CE]Erythnul(2) + [LG]Heironeous (2) - [LE]Hextor (2) + [CG]Kord (2) - [NE]Vecna (1)

so the answer is..... +10. Which is certainly in the favor of good. If someone else is willing to do Law vs Chaos, go ahead.

[nedz]

I notice that you have three pantheons. The way I do this is to have the different pantheons cover different parts of the world, different 'nations' if you like. This changes their interaction somewhat.