serving lawful evil deity

[Kimras]

So I was thinking in a campaign when serving a lawful evil deity will a lawful good celestial being attack? My thought was I'm serving a god and a greater god at that so they should not want to fight because even though I am evil I'm serving a deity so they would not want to go against chain of command. If I;m completely off base please correct me and tell me why I am wrong.

[tadkins]

In some cases it can work I think, particularly if the two share a common goal. It depends on the situation, really.

If you're serving Hextor and the celestial serves Heironeous, though, that'd be much different...

[weckar]

Somehow that was very difficult to read.

In general, Celestials don't retaliate against evil beings unless they are really having a major impact on the global balance of things. Intraplanar, sometimes even. You simply serving a god with evil intent may not even blip on their radars.

[Kimras]

Somehow that was very difficult to read.

In general, Celestials don't retaliate against evil beings unless they are really having a major impact on the global balance of things. Intraplanar, sometimes even. You simply serving a god with evil intent may not even blip on their radars.

well we are killing archdevils and work our way towards killing lower gods to become gods our selves and so we may better serve our master

[hymer]

well we are killing archdevils and work our way towards killing lower gods to become gods our selves and so we may better serve our master

Don't give them any excuses to take you out, then. Stopping you before you become a god would be Good. The fact that you serve an evil god is also a strike against you. They may, for practical reasons, decide not to press the conflict, since killing evil creatures is useful to them. But it is to be expected that one side will turn on the other sooner or later, and it would be uncharacteristically naíve of celestials to put much (or any) trust in you. Even if they don't know your plans, they certainly should know that you are doing what you are doing for selfish reasons, building yourself up to a greater and greater threat as time passes.

[Red Fel]

Don't give them any excuses to take you out, then. Stopping you before you become a god would be Good. The fact that you serve an evil god is also a strike against you. They may, for practical reasons, decide not to press the conflict, since killing evil creatures is useful to them. But it is to be expected that one side will turn on the other sooner or later, and it would be uncharacteristically naíve of celestials to put much (or any) trust in you. Even if they don't know your plans, they certainly should know that you are doing what you are doing for selfish reasons, building yourself up to a greater and greater threat as time passes.

Going to go with this. While you're out there killing Evil things, they're likely to either ignore or tolerate you, provided you're not being openly, cartoonishly Evil at the time. ("Sure, I was just about to murder Asmodeus... Right after I eat this puppy! Mwahaha!") They might not particularly like you, but they won't be out to get you; stay out of their way and they're likely to stay out of yours.

Once you switch to killing Evil gods, priorities shift. They may dislike the Evil gods, but that's a case of the devil you know, in some instances literally. Godslaying makes you a whole lot of enemies very quickly, and LG Celestials are the rule, not the exception. That said, until you actually start killing gods, they might not even know what you're planning; if you're smart, tactful, cautious about it, you can stay under the radar until you're strong enough to handle matters. And by matters, I mean hordes of angry angels.

But it raises another point - you're assuming that, by killing lesser deities, you'll become deities yourselves. That's not technically how it works, so make sure your DM is on-board with the idea; otherwise, you'll end up standing with some bloody knives over some deity corpses, suddenly painfully aware of the fact that the entire cosmology is staring right at you, and it's the day of that exam that you didn't study for, and you're not wearing any pants.

Short version? Avoid the celestials. Generally good policy for almost anybody.

[atemu1234]

Short version? Avoid the celestials. Generally good policy for almost anybody.

This. Honestly, even a godless Lawful Good character may PO these buggers. A certain quote from ferris bueller would fit well here, but I won't do it. Basically, you're looking at the pure-pure-purity-pureness beings, that don't get along well with most other people. It's not going to end well, regardless of your alignment.

[jedipotter]

So I was thinking in a campaign when serving a lawful evil deity will a lawful good celestial being attack? My thought was I'm serving a god and a greater god at that so they should not want to fight because even though I am evil I'm serving a deity so they would not want to go against chain of command. If I;m completely off base please correct me and tell me why I am wrong.

It will depend on the deity served, the celestial, and the situation.

A Couatl would not care so much that you serve Bane, but it would attack as soon as it found you served Tiamat. A trumpet archon might ignore anyone unless it had something to do with it's duty.

[Dorian Gray]

All the above being said, however, there is no reason the celestials wouldn't attack you if you were serving an evil god. You said something incomprehensible about chain of command, but you don't respect the enemy chain of command in battle- if a group of archons runs into a group of devils, they won't kill the weakest first and only fight the leader once the minions are dead.

What I'm saying, is that serving an evil deity means that you are on the celestial "bad list", and the fact that you are serving an evil deity won't keep you from getting ganked because of some notion of honor.