Ignorant Good Church in D&D

[White_Drake]

I want a nation of religious zealots slaughtering and torturing in crusades and inquisitions for a homebrew setting I'm making. You know the type, ignorant, bloodthirsty maniacs who butcher innocents in the name of good; think of those folks that nobody expects. At any rate, I was wondering how this could possibly work in a D&D setting, seeing as any evil acts by a good god's worshiper would result in the god whacking them with a rolled up newspaper. Short of completely changing how divine magic and cosmologies work, I'm stumped. Any ideas?

[Thajocoth]

Their god could be evil and tricking them

[Shred-Bot]

Have Miko ascend to godhood! She'd be perfect for this!

You'd have to have the god either be just as deluded as they are (like Miko) or maybe have an evil god surround itself with beams of light and tell the people they are on the side of justice.

Maybe have the detect good/evil spells be forbidden (capital crimes?) outside of a few elite members of their hierarchy, as otherwise someone would catch on rather quickly.

[Eldonauran]

You'd have to have the god either be just as deluded as they are (like Miko) or maybe have an evil god surround itself with beams of light and tell the people they are on the side of justice.

Maybe have the detect good/evil spells be forbidden (capital crimes?) outside of a few elite members of their hierarchy, as otherwise someone would catch on rather quickly.

Yeah, you'd have to have something like this since alignment is pretty hard to fake where divine spells are concerned.

Since the deity determines who it grants spells to, and what spells it grants, it could easily prevent people from having spells it disapproves of. Detect alignment spells are, surprisingly, divine only (in core at least).

[ReaderAt2046]

1. The people are trying to combat a genuine threat, but they're going way to far. For example, suppose that there really are a few necromancers hiding around cursing people, but the church has overreacted and is accusing everyone who dresses in black of being a necromancer, then burning them immediately to keep them from calling up their unholy minions.

2. The god that they're following is making the same mistake.

3. The god they're following intends to punish them for what they're up to in his own time, but is not acting yet for some incomprehensible reason.

4. Detect alignment spells don't work or are known to be counterable.

[GnomeGninjas]

They get their spells from the church, not their god. The church/inquisition has grown so feared and powerful that most people fear it more than their god. They believe they are getting power from their god but actually they are worshipping the philosophy of heretics must die! KILL! KILL! KILLL!

[Chilingsworth]

Play in Eberron.

[J-H]

They'd be Lawful Neutral in service of Good ends using questionable means... Gray Guard and the like.

[Scow2]

It's obviously the church in service to Pelor, The Burning Hate.

[CarpeGuitarrem]

They're fighting an infection of evil. It doesn't visibly change one's alignment, but the moment it bursts out, it does so in a violent rage, killing innocent people and turning the carrier into a demonic monster. All they have to go on is whether someone adheres to the Code, which was imbued with the holy words of their (legitimately Good) deity, and thus serves as a protection against the infection.

Bingo.

Now all you need is some people who are ruthless and pragmatic enough to implement the policy of killing people to contain the infection.

[Surfnerd]

You don't actually have to put Good as one of the domains of the god, but build up a domain list that could be taken to extremes of evil or also be construed as virtuous. A church of St. Cuthbert from 3.5 could fracture into this sort of fanatical overzealous group. Destruction Domination law protection strength.

In the name of strength and destruction alone they could be shoring up the moral virtue of their nation by eliminating any signs of sin or evil. You could have perfectly Lawful Good followers of St. Cuthbert doing horribly evil act because being lawful they are following the orders of their higher ups, who may be Lawful Evil or Lawful Neutral that also bought into what some prophet or seer has told them.

Higher up to LG paladin, "There are several unmarried spinsters in the town of Villmar. It has come to our attention that the crops of several of the surrounding dukes have spoiled early. Our studies of the Sollorias Scrolls has led us to believe these women may be in league with hags as is their custom. Round them up and bring them to the Order of the Scales, where they shall be judged for their crimes."

Now the paladin collecting women isn't evil, but perhaps after terrible tests they are deemed in league with Hags who don't exist yet the whole of the Villmar region is now on high alert for Hag collusion which just starts a wildfire of accusations and yet more work for our obedient Paladin and his knightly companions.

[Slipperychicken]

1. Gods don't interfere in the world. Presumably, they're too busy doing god-stuff or screwing around to do much about it. Or maybe there's a divine deal which amounts to "don't track mud on my nice clean world". This is why they have Angels, priests, paladins, Aleaxs, and other divine minions doing their dirty work. So as long as the church is sort of adhering to the Good Word, they're getting spells.

2. Divine magic comes from strength of belief, rather than the Gods themselves. This has precedent in D&D, and would allow the church to do basically anything they want. They only lose connection if they waver.

3. If the church begins to fall, some other unknown force starts harvesting their prayers and grants their spells. Everyone thinks the God approves, but it's really not the God at all. Some other powerful outsider has essentially taken over from behind the scenes.

4. The God knows the church is falling, but is either too busy or lazy to do much about it. As long as he's getting his delicious prayers and sacrifice, he's happy.

[RolandDeschain]

This sounds stupidly simplistic and probably isn't subtle enough for your campaign, but why not have an "evil god" slay a "good god", assume his portfolio, churches, worshipers, etc... and begin twisting away.

Of course it's not something that would remain hidden for long(if at all), but in this instance a schism or even a civil war within the church isn't bad for the story line. Actually it would provide a very justifiable reason for "inquisition" style actions of "deluded" followers and their attempt to "purify" the church.

[AntiTrust]

Play in Eberron.

Yeah eberron has a more vague/removed idea of gods and in fact the Silver Flame religion a LG church/nation went on a huge crusade vs were-creatures and ended up killing a lot of innocent shifters in the process (non were creatures, but a race that could shift their form). There really wasn't any sort of divine backlash for killing the shifters.

[Malak'ai]

I haven't read all the replies, but I'm going to chime in here.
The idea you're proposing is similar to something in the Novel series The Wheel of Time.

A whole city (nation?) called Aridhol (http://wot.wikia.com/wiki/Aridhol) were lead to believe by one of the King's Councillors that be beat the Shadow (The Dark One and his minions), they had to he harder than the Shadow.
Everyone thought they were still doing good while running round torturing, killing and forcing atrocities of extreme proportions on those around them.

So you could have had a priest in the past, who had a slightly twisted view of of the God's doctrine. His preaching caught on and the Nation's views changed, their attitudes to sin changed and over the years their ways have gotten more and more extreme, but in their hearts, they still believe they are doing their God's work.

[ArcturusV]

Well... I don't see how that's too strange of a problem. Least in 3rd/3.5 DnD. This is because Divine Casters can, and do in my experience with PCs, get powers just from "Philosophies" and such rather than actually requiring a god. As such the fact that the church has belief could in fact grant spells regardless of how their God may or may not view them and their actions.

It can also result in a "You're deluded!" on both sides as the God in question sends mortal agents to knock their heads and get them back in line. The locals will go... "Well... our priest has miracles he can cast given to him by the God... so he's obviously right!" and accuse the outsider(s) of being delusional (Outsider referring to strangers, not plane of origin).

[TuggyNE]

A whole city (nation?) called Aridhol (http://wot.wikia.com/wiki/Aridhol) were lead to believe by one of the King's Councillors that be beat the Shadow (The Dark One and his minions), they had to he harder than the Shadow.
Everyone thought they were still doing good while running round torturing, killing and forcing atrocities of extreme proportions on those around them.

Notably, Aridhol, unlike D&D churches/religions/priests, had no special connection to divine forces, or granted magic, or anything. I'm not sure they even had (m)any Aes Sedai.

Still, that is a useful parallel in some ways.

[Malak'ai]

Notably, Aridhol, unlike D&D churches/religions/priests, had no special connection to divine forces, or granted magic, or anything. I'm not sure they even had (m)any Aes Sedai.

Still, that is a useful parallel in some ways.

I don't believe Aes Sedai were welcome in Aridhol once Mordeth had twisted the Kings thinking going by his reaction when the boys mentioned that they were with one back in The Eye of the World.

Back on track, as others have said, the population might have started off by worshipping a certain God, but over time as the 'corruption' got stronger, they have shifted to worshipping the ideals they believe to be "The Truth".

[Averis Vol]

1. hire peasents to murder and pillage for you
2. pay them to do all manner of unspeakable things
3. use diplomacy to convince them its gods will

boom, instant crusades.*









*(Probably not)

[White_Drake]

I just wanted to say thanks for all of the great replies. I don't have time to formulate a response, but I will later today.

[Raimun]

I propose the most common solution to any problems with the Cleric-class:

Make them Clerics of a cause.

Most of the time, Clerics of cause are individuals who lack any kind of organization. In fact, there might be just one guy who seriously believes in what he does. What would happen if he/she got followers and the Cause would become the belief system of thousands of people?

That way, they get their divine power by the power of belief but there's no god to punish them if they stray from the path. This in turn means they stay a credible threat, even if their Alignment becomes the opposite of their founder who had good intentions.

Just stay clear of Alignment Domains and they can be any Alignment you want. They could still believe in "greater good". That's good, not Good, by the way.

Edit: Law Domain would still be doable. I'd make them all have Law domain and any (non-Alignment) Domain of their choice. That would give you some variation if you used them as antagonists.

[JusticeZero]

A few things.
First, how exactly do Detect Alignment spells work?
In a standard moral act there is two components: the act itself, and the consequence of that act. The fact that these can vary is the heart of the classic philosophy debate on good and evil, forming two sides of the three theories in use. Take the classic "Kill a baby to stop a demonic plot" catch. Deontology declares that you are Good if you spare the baby and let the demon destroy the city and Evil if you stop the plot; Objectivists declare you are Evil if you spare the baby and Good if you kill the baby to save the city. The third angle states that "If your god tells you to kill the baby and then help the demon destroy the city anyways, then you are Evil if you spare the city."
CHOOSE ONE AND STICK TO IT. I normally recommend a deontological approach here because it's a lot easier to adjudicate, but in any case none of these necessarily provide "expected" results in complex cases. (This is why paladins are unplayable in so many campaigns.)

In my games, "Detect Alignment" spells detect the taint that is stuck to a soul by their acts. The important part here is that there are a lot of things that can stick to you; for instance, in my games, casting any healing spell nudges you toward "Good", so the master torturer who casts a boatload of healing spells to keep his victims prepared for the next bout of questioning gleams bright white under a Detect Alignment spell. In contrast, any spells that work with negative energy blacken your soul REGARDLESS OF THE PURPOSE, so if you use a lot of necromantic spells in your battle against vile evil, regardless of the fact that you are fair and noble and pure in your dealings with people you will still show as pitch black evil to Detect Alignment spells and be able to read a Book of Vile Darkness.

Thus, if all of the members of note of your organization take one level of a custom PRC for their order that grants access to some ability like Lay On Hands, Smite Evil, Turn Undead, etc. etc. and use them regularly, in a game under my ruling of alignment they would still detect Good.

Second, how is the alignment of the God affecting this?
One group in one of my games was a subterranean culture. All of the people in that city were generally Good people. All of them were religious, and their ENTIRE PANTHEON was in charge of very nasty things. The key here was that they were not worshipping the gods to emulate them, but instead to abjure them. For instance, if you were bloodied and mangled, you would visit the church of the Dark God of Wounds and ask them to magically turn His "gifts" away from you. If you were sick, you would go to the temple of the Vile Lord of Plague.

A priesthood need not be aligned perfectly with the goals of their God; indeed, they need not even be aligned with the goals of the higher ups in the priesthood. They may have started out doing something good and noble, and over time, the middle management started in on mission creep and started going too far - but because they all have the same core beliefs, they're all "on the same team".

Third, do they need to be evil at all?
In New Orleans, after Katrina, people looked at the results and saw poor neighborhoods where only the richest of the people left had the means to leave. It seemed pretty apparent that those neighborhoods were going to get even worse, and the best way known to help that was to build them new houses in richer neighborhoods where they would have better schools, be away from the corrupting influence of organized crime, and be surrounded by better role models.
Of course, to the people who actually lived in those places, it just looked like people were trying to take advantage of a disaster to whitewash their homes off the map, and finish the job that the flood had started. Suspicions (completely unfounded) ran rampant that the flooding had been engineered by the other side to destroy them.
Both sides of a conflict of that sort have a righteous cause, and neither of them is really doing anything evil per se - but they violently disagree as to the methods. There are a number of ways in which you can engineer a large scale white vs white conflict, and both sides could march out with legions of paladins to battle each other, wreaking havok on the opposite side, without ever straying from the side of holiness.

They can even look like they are horribly evil, from the other viewpoint, simply because you don't hear the other side much and something they do that they think is positive just comes off horribly to the other group.
For instance, the other side might even have some horrible heraldry, if the interpretation of the things there are different. For instance, most Americans picture bald eagles as a noble and powerful bird full of magesty. For the tribes in the area I grew up in, the word for "Eagle" would be used in place of "Rat" or "Vulture"; a foul and greedy animal, most often seen covered in filth and fighting with its kin over scraps of rotting garbage and maggot-eaten filth. If the first contact of those tribes were with armies of warriors covered in eagle-themed imagery, they would think no more of fighting them than most adventurers would of fighting ghouls or yuan-ti.

[Synovia]

Remember, committing an evil act doesn't necessarily make you evil.

[Randel]

For a twist: What if the god they worship doesn't consider killing innocents inherently evil because it also controls the afterlife?

"Kill 'em all and let God sort 'em out!" happens to work in this setting because their god actually does judge people fairly and maybe does something like reincarnates them or sends them to a good afterlife or something.

His plan is basically to kill everyone (within reason) and shuffle them to their eternal rewards, then the survivors will obviously be all good (now that goblins, orcs, and other "evil" races are all extinct).

His idea of a perfect world is one where everyone is nice and polite... and everyone who isn't is killed as quickly as possible.

For bonus points, it turns out that heaven (or the place where good people go) is pretty damm awesome and they are allowed to do whatever they want (they are no longer alive after all and thus not subject to the rules of the living).

So killing an innocent simply sends them to their respective afterlife that much faster. In fact, due to a legal loophole, if a person is slain falsely by a paladin, the god is "forced" to ignore some of that persons crimes to get them into a better afterlife.

So, this god in particular is a sort of Chaotic Good Ruthless one who uses Lawful Good Stupid followers to kill as many mortals as he can justify. If they are evil, they no longer bother the living and if they are good or even neutral, they go into a pretty sweet afterlife that is better than anything they could have had in life.

[Rhynn]

I want a nation of religious zealots slaughtering and torturing in crusades and inquisitions for a homebrew setting I'm making. You know the type, ignorant, bloodthirsty maniacs who butcher innocents in the name of good; think of those folks that nobody expects. At any rate, I was wondering how this could possibly work in a D&D setting, seeing as any evil acts by a good god's worshiper would result in the god whacking them with a rolled up newspaper. Short of completely changing how divine magic and cosmologies work, I'm stumped. Any ideas?

There couldn't be anything simpler: impersonal or unreachable gods. Eberron has this as a default. So do many, many fantasy worlds and games.

Basically, nobody ever gets smacked by a god. Nobody ever meets gods, at least in any way that can be confirmed or is objectively true.

[Kornaki]

Even if it's an active deity, he still might be ignorant of details. The pope equivalent could keep saying "We're killing all the heretics" and the god shoots back "Nice work, keep it up!" without bothering to check, because he knows the pope's a good guy. The pope of course is interpreting the word 'heretic' based on his own mortal biases and partial information

[Rhynn]

Even if it's an active deity, he still might be ignorant of details. The pope equivalent could keep saying "We're killing all the heretics" and the god shoots back "Nice work, keep it up!" without bothering to check, because he knows the pope's a good guy. The pope of course is interpreting the word 'heretic' based on his own mortal biases and partial information

Non-omniscient deities who are too busy with deity stuff are a pretty interesting idea (maybe it's real hard work actually staying one, or balancing the scales of eternity, or keeping out the inhabitants of the Void Outside, or whatever), and not very common, AFAIK.

You can also have kind of a middle ground - in Glorantha (of RuneQuest and Hero Wars/HeroQuesT), deities are experienced by worshippers as personal and active, but are actually both completely incapable of acting on their own in the World after Time began, and actually very changeable - by reinterpreting myths and teaching the new version (and possibly by doing some serious metaphysical engineering and questing) you can change everything from the name of the deity to what powers they grant. But just for the people who know your myths, generally (unless you do really serious metaphysical engineering and questing, in which case you can retroactively change "facts" about deities).

[Kami2awa]

Their God is actually mad and has more than one personality (see Gabriel from In Nomine). The multiple contradictory messages from the deity have resulted in the church being twisted into something terrible even though half the time their actual deity is good, and grants the associated powers.

Maybe their clerics actually have "forbidden domains" granted by the God's nastier half which are from the Evil spheres; the clerics can learn and use them but doing so is considered heretical, with the usual fiery penalties.

[Killer Angel]

Their god could be evil and tricking them


It's obviously the church in service to Pelor, The Burning Hate.

Exactly my thougth.
So I'll add the link (http://community.wizards.com/go/thread/view/75882/19558798/Pelor,_the_Burning_Hate), for the OP's convenience. Nice for a campaign, I would say.

[Jack of Spades]

This hasn't been suggested yet, I don't think:

What if the god has a chip on his shoulder?

I mean, just because a god is Good doesn't mean he doesn't have enemies. In fact, it means that most Evil gods and their followers are likely to fall into that category.

So, the crusades were ordered by the god himself, against the forces of some specific evil. The god assures his followers that any act taken in pursuit of this holy war will not taint their alignment and that there need not be any holds barred in the conflict-- these are the forces of Evil we're fighting, after all! In fact, the church could probably tell people that taking part in the conflict would, in fact, cleanse them of past wrongs. So, you have an army of all alignments given free reign in a war against an enemy labelled as beyond redemption... In a situation where they are technically doing Good (at least as far as their patron god is concerned), no matter what they're doing. I mean, this is kind of exactly how crusades have been justified in history.

[JusticeZero]

Yeah, and that fits one of the three theories of Good in philosophy too.. that being the one that "If your God hates it, it is Evil, if your God likes it, it is Good, if your god likes slaughtering babies then their paladins must burn orphanages to remain Good, and detect effects are going to give results customized for the source."

[Libertad]

The Church of the Silver Flame in Eberron is a very good example of this.

Basically they worship Tira Miron, a Paladin of Dol Dorn. In order to seal away a powerful demon, the two of them became entrapped in a silver pillar of fire. Tira can communicate with people who owe allegiance to the Flame.

Unfortunately, there's no way to tell when she's speaking, and when the demon's speaking. And the idea that the demon can communicate to the faithful in the first place is considered heretical.

[jedipilot24]

Well there's the Burning Hate (http://community.wizards.com/go/thread/view/75882/19558798/Pelor_the_Burning_Hate)?

If you have read Jeff Grubb's 'The Gathering Dark': The Church of Tal is both highly oppressive toward magic-users and hypocritical, since it employs magic users.

[Deepbluediver]

3. If the church begins to fall, some other unknown force starts harvesting their prayers and grants their spells. Everyone thinks the God approves, but it's really not the God at all. Some other powerful outsider has essentially taken over from behind the scenes.

I kind of like this idea, but what about taking it a slightly different direction? Rather than finding another divine source, when their goodly diety abandons them in disgust the followers misinterpret the message as a lack of faith, and it prompts them to resort to even more extreme measures and other other sources of power (such as arcane magic) to win back the love of their god. Of course, their actions instead drive it further away, but zealots don't really get logic; thats basically the definition of the term.
See also, charasmatic leaders and people in the middle of a crisis.

As some one else pointed out, Detect Alignment spells are usually limited to divine casters, so it would explain why they are slaughtering indiscriminately instead of just getting a cleric to check everyone.


Also also, while I normally promote the idea that the good dieties embody traits like mercy, justice, compassion, kindness, and understanding (in other words, they aren't "*******-good'), I'm sure it would be possible to find an overzealous GOD. After all, outsiders are basically a physical embodiment of extreme concepts and it sounds entirely reasonable that one might get off-message.

If you want to drag it out even more, you could say that some unusually powerful Solar or other angel has finally gotten fed up that Pelor hasn't finished off Azmodeus and his ilk yet, and is ambitious enough to try and climb the celestial ladder to do the job himself. Hence, he's found some followers and is sending them on crusades to spread his message.

[Ghost49X]

Play in Eberron.

Also to point out that in Eberron when using a detect alignment on a cleric you get the alignment of his church because he's laden with powers colored by that alignment regardless of his own personal alignment.

So if you use detect alignment on a cleric of the Silver Flame you'll get "Lawful Good" as a result even if this cleric just made a pact with a pit lord for personal power.