Opposing Deities For a Campaign

[WanderinCourier]

Howdy to start off with I'm starting to set up my first Campaign as a DM.

I'm trying to keep it mostly according to the handbooks not too much homebrew if i can help it for now, but I’m running into an early problem. For my idea of the Campaign the world they are living in is in a period of darkness after a long period of false light. What i mean is that this world was very war-torn between good and evil, really a black and white tale. The two forces had been battling for millennia’s without any true gain on either side till one moment when the "light" seemed to conquer the evil and banish it from the world. What I’m thinking about is having the Good Force actually have been corrupted by something than so instead of the evil being banished it merely went into hiding in plain sight. Till it saw the right opportunity and destroyed the good.

Enter the world that they are in now, it’s a bleak world. The commoners have no hope they fear their lords, and those who dare speak out are either killed or enslaved. I'm thinking about starting the campaign with the PC being part of a slave revolt and manage to escape/start their journey.

The first issue I’m running into is I’m not sure what gods/deities would have been leading these battles against each other. Also I’m trying to come up with an idea why these people are important if they even are.

This campaign won't start for several months so i have plenty of time to build this up so if anyone or a group of people would be interested in helping me out with building my first campaign I’d rather love you forever in a bromance sort of way. All in all any little bit helps and I'm more than willing to set up a Skype chats, or email convos or anything if anyone is interested.

[Vhaidara]

There's a pair of gods in the pack of Dieties and Demigods. As I recall, one is a god of positive energy and the other is a god of negative energy.

[Brookshw]

How about a single god with two sides, pelor and pelor burning hate? Schizophrenic god style?

[WanderinCourier]

How about a single god with two sides, pelor and pelor burning hate? Schizophrenic god style?

That would certainly be interesting and a huge plot twist i will definitly keep that in mind.

[Vhaidara]

I actually did that with Olidamara once. You had the main god at CN, and then I pulled Mask and Tymora from FR as his faces.

[Corrin Avatan]

Tiamat and Bahamut. As I recall, the Scales of War Adventure Path from 4e pretty much was a Tiamat vs. Bahamut thing, and would likely have plenty of ideas for you to steal... I mean, be inspired by :smallamused:

[WanderinCourier]

How about a single god with two sides, pelor and pelor burning hate? Schizophrenic god style?

For Pelor the Burning Hate is there anything official on that or is it all sorta hearsay?


Tiamat and Bahamut. As I recall, the Scales of War Adventure Path from 4e pretty much was a Tiamat vs. Bahamut thing, and would likely have plenty of ideas for you to steal... I mean, be inspired by :smallamused:

And correct me if i'm wrong but Bahamut is the Good god that makes/Leads the dragonBorn. Does Tiamat have any followers or anything of that sort that could be played in? Cause that would work well for an opposing army/forces.

[animevacker1045]

if you're planning to do Tiamat vs Bahamut you might want to look through the dragonlance campaign setting books for some monsters.

[Red Fel]

That would certainly be interesting and a huge plot twist i will definitly keep that in mind.

As I recall, Deities and Demigods actually proposed the idea of a dualistic religion, with two god-facets symbolizing the good and evil sides of a single godhead. So there's precedent.

Similarly, I recall a dark version of Yondalla, the Halfling patron goddess, called Dallah Thaun, who isn't Evil, but is certainly a dark shadow of the goddess. It's not too hard to do that with any Chaotic or Neutral deity; give them a shadow-self that does what the deity proper can't, but ought to.


if you're planning to do Tiamat vs Bahamut you might want to look through the dragonlance campaign setting books for some monsters.

As I recall, in Dragonlance, Bahamut became Paladine, and went from an intermediate and dragon-specific deity to the leader of the Good pantheon; similarly, Tiamat became Takhisis, and went from a fringe Evil deity to the Dark Queen, basically the Ultimate Evil. So, yeah, you can use them rather effectively.