Paladins of a vile patron

[Xuldarinar]

A broad notion I'd like to explore. A paladin who worships, in public or in private, an evil-aligned deity or similar entity. Not antipaladin, not someone who simply calls themselves a paladin, but a lawful good champion of benevolence and order. How would you approach this notion, be it in general or with a specific entity?

[Inevitability]

I once saw someone justify it like this:

The Great Defiler is the epitome of evil and corruption. Where he goes, the earth itself shakes under his unholy power, and all he looks upon withers and dies. Once, he was free to lay siege upon the earth, nearly wiping all life off it. Various gods of good, however, intervened and sealed the Defiler in a prison even a god could not best.

The Defiler did have followers, though, evil nihilists wanting to destroy all of creation. They waited for centuries, certain that their deity would soon escape. Nothing happened, though, and the cultists started to doubt their ways. But if waiting was not enough, what would be?

Then, a charismatic young human spoke up. According to him, the Defiler's prison prevented him from noticing our world. The only way to summon him was to provide him with what he loved to destroy most; happiness and peace.

A group of paladins was called into existence, all with a single mission; to increase the amount of goodness, beauty, and hope in the multiverse so that the Defiler would be lured to it.


You now have a paladin who is doing incredibly good things for incredibly bad reasons. However, with D&D's 'good intentions are not enough' system, he can actually qualify as LG. There you go, one champion of honor serving ultimate evil.

[Xuldarinar]

I once saw someone justify it like this:

The Great Defiler is the epitome of evil and corruption. Where he goes, the earth itself shakes under his unholy power, and all he looks upon withers and dies. Once, he was free to lay siege upon the earth, nearly wiping all life off it. Various gods of good, however, intervened and sealed the Defiler in a prison even a god could not best.

The Defiler did have followers, though, evil nihilists wanting to destroy all of creation. They waited for centuries, certain that their deity would soon escape. Nothing happened, though, and the cultists started to doubt their ways. But if waiting was not enough, what would be?

Then, a charismatic young human spoke up. According to him, the Defiler's prison prevented him from noticing our world. The only way to summon him was to provide him with what he loved to destroy most; happiness and peace.

A group of paladins was called into existence, all with a single mission; to increase the amount of goodness, beauty, and hope in the multiverse so that the Defiler would be lured to it.


You now have a paladin who is doing incredibly good things for incredibly bad reasons. However, with D&D's 'good intentions are not enough' system, he can actually qualify as LG. There you go, one champion of honor serving ultimate evil.



Its a great concept, and a functional one at that.

I've a few others to present.


The Misinformed: Be it by their patron's deception, a cult's misinterpretation, or their own ignorance, they have come to worship a powerful and evil entity. Likely they keep to some of the rituals inherent to the faith but stray away from any vile ones, be it out of ignorance of them or they are convinced these are rituals of misguided cultists and not of the true faith. They aren't evil, but they fly the colors. We can make the argument that paladins of Pelor are such in D&D.

The Redeemer: Not unlike the misguided, they fight for their patron on what is perhaps a false pretense. Rather than them being misinformed on the nature of the one they worship however, their intent is something different. Worshippers, strangely enough, appear to have an influence on deities and demigods. A deity's power is to a degree based on how many sing their praises, and there have been cases where an entity changes form based on their worship. For instance; a Qlippoth Lord can become a Demon Lord give time and worship, being corrupted by their follower's sins. Following a similar premise, whether it works or not, a paladin might seek to redeem a deity or demigod by trying to raise up good aligned followers.

The Falling Zealot: Rather than a knowing follower, they are a tool for their patron. This operates off the following premise, proposed in 3.5's Heroes of Horror, italics for emphasis.


- A paladin has grown vicious and draconic in his interpretation of the law and is oppressing his people; he either does not realize or does not care that he is mere steps away from falling from his god’s favor. (Perhaps an evil god or a demon lord is maintaining his powers without his awareness.)

Given this, a paladin might push the line of lawful good. Their actions might even normally would have resulted in a paladin falling, but instead a vile patron has started supplying them with power, allowing them to continue and even believe what they are doing is right. They become a pawn, after a fashion, for the very thing they have sworn to fight against. The praises they sing as they charge into battle are not to the one they think they are, but to a being of evil.

[endur]

A broad notion I'd like to explore. A paladin who worships, in public or in private, an evil-aligned deity or similar entity. Not antipaladin, not someone who simply calls themselves a paladin, but a lawful good champion of benevolence and order. How would you approach this notion, be it in general or with a specific entity?

This is possible if you think about it.

Imagine a monotheistic country, I.e. everyone worships only one God. In this particular case, the God believes in human sacrifice and is evil (or is evil for other reasons).

Follower X is lawful and obeys the laws of his country. Follower X is also good and does not seek to harm others. Follower X worships the God because that is what he has been taught all his life and there are no alternatives.

Sooner or later, however, the follower will probably either a) reject the teachings of the god; b) be considered a heretic for worshipping the God in non-approved ways; or c) both.

Consider Drizzt in Menzoberanzen. He was raised in a place where Lolth was the only Goddess that was recognized. He eventually rejected her teachings even though the penalty for that was death. Once he made it to the surface world, he discovered other deities.

A secondary issue, however, is the whole issue of associating with evil. The paladin's followers must be lawful good. The Paladin won't continue to associate with someone who is evil.

"While she may adventure with characters of any good or neutral alignment, a paladin will never knowingly associate with evil characters, nor will she continue an association with someone who consistently offends her moral code. A paladin may accept only henchmen, followers, or cohorts who are lawful good."

[Psyren]

I once saw someone justify it like this:

The Great Defiler is the epitome of evil and corruption. Where he goes, the earth itself shakes under his unholy power, and all he looks upon withers and dies. Once, he was free to lay siege upon the earth, nearly wiping all life off it. Various gods of good, however, intervened and sealed the Defiler in a prison even a god could not best.

The Defiler did have followers, though, evil nihilists wanting to destroy all of creation. They waited for centuries, certain that their deity would soon escape. Nothing happened, though, and the cultists started to doubt their ways. But if waiting was not enough, what would be?

Then, a charismatic young human spoke up. According to him, the Defiler's prison prevented him from noticing our world. The only way to summon him was to provide him with what he loved to destroy most; happiness and peace.

A group of paladins was called into existence, all with a single mission; to increase the amount of goodness, beauty, and hope in the multiverse so that the Defiler would be lured to it.


You now have a paladin who is doing incredibly good things for incredibly bad reasons. However, with D&D's 'good intentions are not enough' system, he can actually qualify as LG. There you go, one champion of honor serving ultimate evil.

It sounds more to me like that charismatic guy was a Malconvoker or some other scoundrel who trolled their entire moronic cult :smalltongue:

[Sam K]

This is possible if you think about it.

Imagine a monotheistic country, I.e. everyone worships only one God. In this particular case, the God believes in human sacrifice and is evil (or is evil for other reasons).

Follower X is lawful and obeys the laws of his country. Follower X is also good and does not seek to harm others. Follower X worships the God because that is what he has been taught all his life and there are no alternatives.

Sooner or later, however, the follower will probably either a) reject the teachings of the god; b) be considered a heretic for worshipping the God in non-approved ways; or c) both.

Consider Drizzt in Menzoberanzen. He was raised in a place where Lolth was the only Goddess that was recognized. He eventually rejected her teachings even though the penalty for that was death. Once he made it to the surface world, he discovered other deities.

A secondary issue, however, is the whole issue of associating with evil. The paladin's followers must be lawful good. The Paladin won't continue to associate with someone who is evil.

"While she may adventure with characters of any good or neutral alignment, a paladin will never knowingly associate with evil characters, nor will she continue an association with someone who consistently offends her moral code. A paladin may accept only henchmen, followers, or cohorts who are lawful good."

A person who grew up knowing only evil gods wouldn't have the training to become a paladin, though. If all you have ever known is evil, it's pretty hard to figure out how to worship good. Unless you have an evil god who gives the power of law and good, then...

[Xuldarinar]

Adding on two other questions:

For what reasons would an evil deity or demigod want a paladin in their service?

What such entities would be the most likely to have a paladin in their service? We know Asmodeus is certainly one of them.

[Sam K]

Well, the reason could be if the paladin is heading down a slippery slope of "ends justifying the means" and the evil power wants the paladin to THINK he's still in the good graces of heaven. Self deception is a powerful tool of evil...

[deuxhero]

Pathfinder explicitly
1: Doesn't require Paladins worship a deity for power (outside PFS)
2: Explicitly allows pantheon worship.

A Paladin who "worships" (or merely pays tribute in return for services rendered) the ascended gods (Aroden, Cayden Cailean, Iomedae, Irori, Nethys, Norgorber) could work.

[Arbane]

Adding on two other questions:

For what reasons would an evil deity or demigod want a paladin in their service?


Killing off evil rivals is a big one.
Getting good PR for themselves could be another.

[Aka-chan]

The Misinformed: Be it by their patron's deception, a cult's misinterpretation, or their own ignorance, they have come to worship a powerful and evil entity. Likely they keep to some of the rituals inherent to the faith but stray away from any vile ones, be it out of ignorance of them or they are convinced these are rituals of misguided cultists and not of the true faith. They aren't evil, but they fly the colors. We can make the argument that paladins of Pelor are such in D&D.

There's a fiend in one of the various splat books (Fiend Folio, maybe?) called a lilitu that specializes in corrupting good temples to the worship of an evil deity or archfiend. You could have a paladin who hails from such a corrupted temple. He might have been a member of that temple before the lilitu set up shop and hasn't yet realized what's going on (especially if he's been away adventuring and thus hasn't been around to witness things getting ever more sinister). Or perhaps he's a new recruit who hasn't yet been allowed to see the rot that festers beneath the temple's benevolent surface activities.

[daremetoidareyo]

An evil god of secrets or trechery would totally try to actively train paladins as double agents. Imagine an evil god of trechery sends cultists out to make casting calls of young men. The god sends one group of cultists to run an orphanage while he sends others to kill the parents of these potential double agents. These kids are sent to the orphanages. They arrange and kill for scholarships to send them to the best martial schools. The evil God forces a group of cultists to take on these wards to provide them with religious training. These boys are all told bedtime stories and morality plays about the Shining order of Heronious. Explain to these boys that their destiny is to become some of the best knights in the kingdom. So these LG paladin 1's are rolling in from this orphanage nearby. None of the boys ping as evil. Their hearts are pure. But their souls and minds are easily accessed by the lord of trechery. So when there are missions to unearth ancient mcguffins of interest or when Heironious is giving direct orders to the paladins who work for him, the evil god has readied his information network. Based on this, the god of trechery knows exactly who is likely to fall, and from what temptations. This god has super gullible inside men (to whom he can just send a dream full of heartbreaking instructions). This god also has an inside source of how well his actual evil cult is being tracked.