Why evil gods don't care about welfare of their followers?

[With a box]

In most settings, people can plane shift to his afterlife and testify about it. (Or dead and ressurected)
It won't be good to him if someone scry/visit hell and say 'Hell sucks'.

[holywhippet]

Not everyone has access to high level magic like plane shift (which can be dangerous to use given that you end up 5 - 500 miles from your target location). As for those who have been there, and can convince others of the truth, some people won't actually believe they are evil.

In any case, it does depend on the setting. In the Forgotten Realms the current god of the dead (unless they've changed it) just groups together people of the same alignment in the afterlife.

You could also assume the Gods will reward those who served them faithfully and well.

[PersonMan]

In the Fiendish Codices, moreso in the first, there are some notes on how evil deities have their own turf and take their followers there. So they could probably set up a good afterlife for you...assuming, of course, that you didn't 'earn' a bad one by failing.

[Necroticplague]

1. Petitioners lose their class abilities. So regardless of your power in life, you aren't gonna be able to plane shift after death.

2. The Lower Planes aren't intrinsically crappy. Their a bit like a corporation. Being at the bottom sucks, but being in the higher ranks is pretty sweet. If nothing else, the Lower Planes are a meritocracy. With enough skill and determination, you can move up to get all sorts of power. Whether you do skillful political navigation or just slaughter your way up the food chain, you get what you want through your own effort. And you always have the hope of moving all the way up to practically deific levels of power.

[Nettlekid]

Also most afterlifes work by turning the soul of the dead creature into a petitioner who just kind of hangs around, so it's not as though the actual spirit of the dead creature is being tortured. I think that's only the case if you sell your soul to fiends or something like that.

But another aspect of it is that if you're really an evil person, who wants capital-E Evil things, then the lower planes are actually fun places for you. If you're Lawful Evil, you believe that a rigid tyrannical hierarchy is the way to maintain order in the world, and only those who deserve it climb the ranks to gain positions of power which are secure because it's against the rules to outright dethrone someone else. Of course you have to be wary of others being "tricksy," but that's the point of it, and you condone that behavior as you yourself use it. That's Baator in a nutshell. Similarly, if you are truly Chaotic Evil, then your paradise is one with no semblance of order or reason. You frenzy, murder, pillage, destroy whatever you want, whenever you want, for whatever reason you want. If you get hurt, it's because you were weak, and didn't deserve it. And so they would enjoy the chaos and hatred of the Abyss. So the Evil gods aren't dooming their followers, they're making a hospitable area for them.

[atemu1234]

Because only souls unclaimed by deities go to generic afterlives.

[AuraTwilight]

In fairness, a God's domains don't necessarily conform to the rest of how the plane necessarily behaves.

Additionally, it's the nature of pride and egotism to believe oneself special and elevated. SOME petitioners of hell have become great dark lords who can indulge in every vice at the expense of others. Things are pretty awesome for those guys.

And who's to say you, the Terrible <Villain A>, aren't just as great and special, if you were only given the chance?

[Jeff the Green]

1. Petitioners lose their class abilities. So regardless of your power in life, you aren't gonna be able to plane shift after death.

2. The Lower Planes aren't intrinsically crappy. Their a bit like a corporation. Being at the bottom sucks, but being in the higher ranks is pretty sweet. If nothing else, the Lower Planes are a meritocracy. With enough skill and determination, you can move up to get all sorts of power. Whether you do skillful political navigation or just slaughter your way up the food chain, you get what you want through your own effort. And you always have the hope of moving all the way up to practically deific levels of power.

2a. Few Evil people think that they'll spend eternity as a dretch. Instead they assume they will quickly rise through the ranks and become the CEO, or at least vice-president.

[Elderand]

2a. Few Evil people think that they'll spend eternity as a dretch. Instead they assume they will quickly rise through the ranks and become the CEO, or at least vice-president.

It's a lot like playing the lottery really. Technicly you have better chance to be hit by lightning, but there are winners, just enough to keep the rest playing.
And so it is with evil, there are just enough that makes it to a position of power in the afterlife to keep the rest tempted.

[Phelix-Mu]

2a. Few Evil people think that they'll spend eternity as a dretch. Instead they assume they will quickly rise through the ranks and become the CEO, or at least vice-president.

From which I am forced to conclude that evil people are bad at math.:smalltongue:

This problem cuts two ways.

1.) Even if the Lower Planes are often far from ideal or a bit of a long shot, the celestial Upper Planes are really, really undesirable for an evil person. In realms founded on virtues like love, selflessness, kindness, and so forth, an evil person finds almost nothing appealing. Even the Muzak is terrible. Imagine being some bad*ss mofo who spends time pissing on the weak and laughing about it "with" your cronies (who laugh back because they know anyone that makes you angry gets their balls ripped off). Imagine this bad*ss in Elysium on an average day. The day's activities include

a.) Singing songs extolling virtue and proclaiming the joy inherent in the multiverse.
b.) Giving thoughtful gifts to your circle of companions, who usually respond with great joy and similar gifts given to you; sadly, the gifts are typically things like birdhouses, tea cozies, and other handmade simplicities that show thoughtfulness and time spent creating something beautiful (and worthless).
c.) Platonic hand-holding, as the bliss of the landscape washes over you.

A good day might include something like welcoming some champions of virtue, receiving the emissaries of some god or other with a banquet, or perhaps unveiling that painting of a particularly nice overlook of Oceanus that you've been working on on-and-off for a decade and finally finished.

Most bad*sses would rather wager on a lucky draw in the Lower Planes than be assured of the eternal peace of the good afterlife.

Now, the good afterlife may not uniformly be so boring, but it remains dedicated to ideals that are deeply unappealing to anyone evil.

2.) Many powerful interests exist that obscure or otherwise exaggerate the various afterlives. Whether it is fear of the darkness/damnation, gods fishing for new recruits with enticing propaganda, or simply fiends/celestials on some mission that involves pulling the wool over a mortal's eyes (or removing the wool, if they view it that way), there are many possible sources of misinformation. Ultimately, most of the death-defying magic does little to shed light on the issue, and those that travel the planes are often viewed with some suspicion. And, as in real life, matters of faith don't always coincide with matters of logic; people believe what they believe, proof be damned.

[Jeff the Green]

There's also the case that many people who would fall into the Evil afterlives aren't very good at taking into account future consequences for their actions.

In real life there's a famous study called the Marshmallow Experiment. Little kids were placed in a room and showed a marshmallow "If you don't eat this marshmallow," the experimenter told the child, "I'll come back in a little while with another marshmallow and you can have both." Then they left them alone for quite a while and recorded how long it took for the kid to break.

If that were the end of it this would be just your everyday toddler-torture that goes on in developmental psych labs all the time. But they followed the kids into early adulthood. The ones that were least able to delay their gratification and leave the marshmallow alone consistently had lower grades, lower test scores, and, importantly for this discussion, more incarcerations.

So even if you want to get into the Good afterlife, if you're really bad at delaying gratification it's going to be very hard to resist the urge to commit crimes that would provide pleasure now but damn you later, while your friend with more self control can, even if they feel the same urges, keep themselves from doing Evil things and force themselves to do Good things.

[Urpriest]

Let's consider the evil gods in the PHB:

Erythnul: Afterlife consists of a massive, unending melee in Pandemonium in which the weak are destroyed by the strong. Pretty appealing to the average psycho barbarian worshiper of Erythnul.

Gruumsh: In the afterlife you serve in Gruumsh's armies on Acheron, battling the forces of Maglubiyet for the honor and glory of your race, weakening the spiritual enemies of orc-kind so as to weaken their hold on the mortal world. If you care enough about being orc-y to worship Gruumsh, you probably think of such an afterlife as a worthy end.

Hextor: Join Hextor's armies on Acheron, growing strong in the art of war. Very much in tune with your philosophy, if you're the sort to choose Hextor's religion.

Nerull: Prisoners are frozen in blocks of ice, tended by demonic priests. A very devout worshiper might aspire to be one of the demonic priests, but more likely most worshipers are nihilistic enough that they welcome such an end. Worshiping a god of death (and not a guardian of the afterlife type like Wee Jas) tends to entail some amount of insanity.

Vecna: His realm is on the Material Plane, somehow. No idea how that works.

I'll add that Wee Jas also has a realm on the lower planes, but as a guardian of the afterlife presumably she's got some deal with the Suel that makes thing more bearable for them at least.

[Jeff the Green]

Vecna: His realm is on the Material Plane, somehow. No idea how that works.

Well of course you don't. It's a secret.

[awa]

id actually assume most worshipers of nerul are hopping to skip out on death altogether in the form of some kinda undead

[jedipotter]

In most settings, people can plane shift to his afterlife and testify about it. (Or dead and ressurected)
It won't be good to him if someone scry/visit hell and say 'Hell sucks'.

Kinda depends what ''Hell'' is like.

Lets take: Gruumsh. His divine realm is Nishrek.

On this great battlefield, orc warriors clash nightly in devastating conflict, only to rise again the next night to fight again. Different tribes of orc petitioners wage endless war upon each other, foregoing alliances and diplomacy in favor of eternal carnage. By proving themselves in battle, the orcs hope to win the favor of Gruumsh, who they believe will one day identify a single tribe as his true children and declare its members superior to all other orcs.

Ok, that might not sound like heaven to some, but I bet most orcs love it.

How about Grolaneor(evil god of hill giants):Called the Steading, this realm is little more than an enormous wooden house built for the greatest chief of the hill giants. Grolantor's petitioners roam the hills all around the Steading, preying on other petitioners when they can catch them.

How about Malar: Malar's realm, the Land of the Hunt; stretches for uncounted miles from the shore of the Blood Sea. A great, open plain stocked with abundant wildlife (including souls stolen from the Fugue Plane and transformed into innocuous animal forms as prey for hunters), the Land of the Hunt is the only region of Fury's Heart where the weather is occasionally hospitable. The Beastlord roams his realm with his petitioners, all of whom take the forms of large carnivorous animals, to savor the thrill of the hunt. When unwelcome visitors enter the plane, Malar and his companions gleefully turn their attention away from helpless prey and begin to stalk the intruders instead.


None of the above ''Hells suck'', assuming your an evil person to start with.....

[123456789blaaa]

I would also note that while humans are one of the most successful and populous mortal races in DnD, almost every other mortal race has an innate inclination towards a particular alignment. There are a ton of races that are simply naturally inclined towards Evil. All the reasons given above for why people would choose Evil despite the afterlives are multiplied in potency.

[Eldan]

1.) Even if the Lower Planes are often far from ideal or a bit of a long shot, the celestial Upper Planes are really, really undesirable for an evil person. In realms founded on virtues like love, selflessness, kindness, and so forth, an evil person finds almost nothing appealing. Even the Muzak is terrible. Imagine being some bad*ss mofo who spends time pissing on the weak and laughing about it "with" your cronies (who laugh back because they know anyone that makes you angry gets their balls ripped off). Imagine this bad*ss in Elysium on an average day. The day's activities include

a.) Singing songs extolling virtue and proclaiming the joy inherent in the multiverse.
b.) Giving thoughtful gifts to your circle of companions, who usually respond with great joy and similar gifts given to you; sadly, the gifts are typically things like birdhouses, tea cozies, and other handmade simplicities that show thoughtfulness and time spent creating something beautiful (and worthless).
c.) Platonic hand-holding, as the bliss of the landscape washes over you.

A good day might include something like welcoming some champions of virtue, receiving the emissaries of some god or other with a banquet, or perhaps unveiling that painting of a particularly nice overlook of Oceanus that you've been working on on-and-off for a decade and finally finished.

Not just that. Read up on Elysium in Planescape, some day. It comes across as just as mind-rapey as Hades, sometimes.

It literally forces you to do good to achieve anything. Travel time between any two points? Depends on how much good you do along the way. If you travel from City A to City B, you will meet, say, travellers with broken carts. If you help them, you'll be in City B by sunset. If you don't, you'll be stuck on the road another day, when you'll meet another chance to help someone. And that applies to every possible task.

[afroakuma]

Do remember as well that the realms of the gods can be vastly divorced from the environment around them. My favorite is Set's realm, a hot and arid desert hidden on a frozen and watery layer of Hell. Serve an evil deity and most of the time you're in some degree of pretty good overall. Exceptions exist, of course.

Ultimately, though, it's important to remember that most people will never either plane shift or even see evidence of other planes outside of the minor spells of the local clerics. In a world where musicians can go around making illusions in midair, proof is oddly enough even harder to bring to the masses, and the gods don't care for it as a rule anyway. A large swath of people paying lip service in promise of some specific reward is of no use to a god; faith is.