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View Full Version : Roleplaying an Evil God ["KNEEL BEFORE ZU'UL!"]



Arcanist
2012-11-09, 03:33 AM
Seriously, I've always wanted to try and present to my players the full cruelty and brutality that an Evil God can force upon a world should they ever enter the material world. So how would you do it? Because all I can think of when I try to imagine it is everyone being impaled along a metal pike, the screams of agony in the background flooding the world, images of your loved ones striped and tortured upon a wooden cross along side mountains and mountains of skeletons. The very environment being destructive to all life itself. The air being flooded with toxins killing all creatures almost immediately, the seas a constant boil, the skys shattered revealing only the wrath of the burning sun scourching all hope away from the world and the soil bringing forth the closest thing to life such a stain upon the very fabric of reality could spawn: Undeath.

I guess I just imagine the Apocalypse as described by in the book of revelations or something as being what would happen if an Evil God manages to maintain a foothold beyond a cult in the material plane... How do YOU see it? :smallsmile:

Xefas
2012-11-09, 04:01 AM
One moment, you're just standing there, living out your normal life. Everything is fine. You feel good, even. Very good. In fact, you can't remember the last time you felt bad. The sun is shining, the birds are singing. People pass you on the street, all warm smiles, and their happiness brightens your day even more. You inhale the fresh air and everything is perfect.

And then you stop and think for a second. Your vision flickers. You see something - almost another world. Everything is the same, but wrong somehow. The bird songs aren't as sweet, the air isn't as fresh, the smiles seem fake. Your brain hurts. Pain - you almost forgot what it felt like.

You glance around. Start thinking thoughts. What've you been doing? Why are you here? You member packing up your family and moving to this town. But you don't remember why. You have a job, but you were never interested in carpentry before. And... family, that's right... You remember saying "I Love You" to those people, over and over, every day, for years. But, suddenly, you can't remember why you married your spouse, why you had kids, you remember feeling something for them, but it wasn't exactly love.

The thoughts and visions swirl, you feel like you might faint.

But then something catches you. A soft, soothing light cradles you. It tells you that everything is okay. And nothing has ever sounded that genuine and honest before in your entire life. It shines straight through you, and your vision flickers again, back to paradise. All those terrible thoughts you were thinking are obliterated in an almost orgasmic swell of blissful submission.

You go about your day. Happy. Healthy. There is no war here. No disease. No famine. No fear. No strife. No heroes.

And everyone just lives happily ever after. They're born by the designs of another. They never make a single choice in their entire life, every moment of every day planned down to the last instant. They're never allowed to say 'no' to the light in their heads. They do everything they're told. And then they die, happy. The end.

And if you play 3.5 D&D, and want to play that glorious tyrant, this homebrew might help you on your way. (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=259105)

North_Ranger
2012-11-09, 11:33 AM
Being permitted to live out the rest of the miserable days of your pitiful human life among the rest of the chattel, as long as you don't look up. As long as you don't challenge the masters. As long as you just walk away when someone calls for help as they are dragged into the shadows. As long as you look away when your loved one is carried away on sulphurous wings into the night. If you don't speak up, they may let her come back. Maybe...

Man on Fire
2012-11-09, 05:17 PM
"I want you to understand Kal-El, that from this point on everything that happens is on your head. The skies will rain fire, the streets will run red with the blood of billions. Only then, when your last pitiful hope is extinguished will I end your life. Let's go."

You turned your back and I wrecked your world. Deprived your people of their powers, their hopes, their future, themselves. What will you do when your friends, your enemies, your lover, are all Darkseid? When there is one body. One mind. One will. One life that is Darkseid. Will you be the enemy of all existence, then? What irony that will be, Son of Krypton.

'I. AM. THE. NEW. GOD.
ALL IS ONE IN DARKSEID. THIS MIGHTY BODY IS MY CHURCH.
WHEN I COMMAND YOUR SURRENDER, I SPEAK WITH THREE BILLION VOICES...
WHEN I MAKE A FIST TO CRUSH YOUR RESISTANCE. IT IS WITH THREE BILLION HANDS!
WHEN I STARE INTO YOUR EYES AND SHATTER YOUR DREAMS. AND BREAK YOUR HEART. IT IS WITH SIX BILLION EYES!
NOTHING LIKE DARKSEID HAS EVER COME AMONG YOU: NOTHING WILL AGAIN.
I WILL TAKE YOU TO A HELL WITHOUT EXIT OR END.
AND THERE I WILL MURDER YOUR SOULS!
AND MAKE YOU CRAWL AND BEG!
AND DIE!
DIE! DIE FOR DARKSEID!'

Generally - Final Crisis, what Darkseid is doing after he unleashes Anti-Life Equation. People' will is being removed and villions are all simiuantelously posessed by Darkseid, reality cracks upon his presence and entire multiverse starts to collapse.

Blightedmarsh
2012-11-10, 01:26 AM
A kindly looking little old man in a white office.

He seems polite, generous and wise if a little authoritative. Everything is looking good and going well until someone says no; then it pillars of salt time.

Craft (Cheese)
2012-11-10, 01:28 AM
If you want to see an evil god, just take an ordinary human being and then give them nigh-unlimited power to fulfill their every whim, invulnerability, and no consequences for any of their actions... for them.

Man on Fire
2012-11-11, 05:43 AM
If you want to see an evil god, just take an ordinary human being and then give them nigh-unlimited power to fulfill their every whim, invulnerability, and no consequences for any of their actions... for them.

The guy would also be so immature and egoistical that it would lack the dignity you would expect from all-mighty millenia years old diety.

Kitten Champion
2012-11-11, 08:49 AM
I see two different concepts. Ruin from Sanderson's Mistborn series, the Dark One in Wheel of Time, Sauron in LoTR -- those beings who are sufficiently powerful and influential to be considered a Manichean form of embodied evil. Any sort of over-powered Dark Lord with pretensions of godhood fit this trope too, video game last-bosses for instance. They're about leading powerful hosts of evil monsters behind the scenes, corrupting the humans of the world, and overturning the rules of the natural world towards disaster. These evil gods work best with some limitations -- they can still be thwarted, killed, or sealed by the protagonists.

They need others to facilitate their rule or use instruments to carry out their will -- if they go about curb-stomping everyone themselves they sort of lose their appeal. Usually those who've got piety have some natural defence against them, and there are holy relics/weapons/words which can counteract them.

The second concept, the Lovecraftian maligned deity. Cthulhu, Hastur, Nyarlathotep -- ineffable monstrosities which represent an unstoppable ancient force that will inevitably lead to our collective doom. They are evil, but so unlike humans in every way shape or form that their "evil" can't be framed on our understanding of it. You can't fight them, you can't really run from them, your only protection is they're not aware of you or simply don't care enough at the moment. Just seeing them brings you to madness.

These deities represent the horror of the universe, of lizard-brained terror of the unknown darkness. That a benevolent god is an illusion and only temporary good fortune is separating us from unimaginable torment and death.

You can play such a deity by simply doing whatever you want with whatever you want, whatever is outside the scope of your immediate notice is shaking in its boots that you'll get around to them eventually. They might be whimsical and choose to play around with their toys over the span of eons, for whatever reason.