Help Making NPC Suitably Evil While Maintaining Concept?

[Vrock_Summoner]

Somebody call Red Fel, I need a master of the more subtle forms of Evil!

So in a campaign setting I'm making, I'm using the Pharaonic pantheon and structuring the church and state around the priesthood. While there are both secular and religious state powers, the state and church are both led by the high priests of the various gods (with each pharaoh trained as the High Priest of Re-Horahkty, along with being a descendant of such; I recognize that's not really how it worked in ancient Egypt, but I like the feel). The high priests of Greater Deities are above those of the Intermediates, and those are above the Lesser, but they're all collectively the highest echelon of state leadership.

For almost the entire history of the current main country of the setting, the priesthood was composed of Clerics of the Neutral and Good gods. However, a recent (a few years recent, not yesterday recent) cosmological event combined with as-of-yet undefined "political circumstances" resulted in the addition of additional gods into the priesthood... The formerly entirely-shunned aberrant gods.

So what I need help with is the High Priestess of Set. She's going to be a (Spellstitched) Lich Cleric. Technically spontaneous, as I'm requiring all casters in this game be spontaneous (or fixed list), but that's irrelevant to what I need help with. See, the other abberant gods' priesthoods are ultimately not too hard to work with; everyone basically expects them to be Evil to some extent, and as even smaller than normal priesthoods of Lesser Deities, they're allowed to be troublesome, and the trouble they do cause is easily managed.

Set, however, is a Greater Deity, and now that Set-worshippers can be open without being hunted down, it turns out that Set has about as much of a worshiping base (and clergy) as the other Greater Deities. Their High Priestess thus has much to account for; she can do the most to affect the conditions for the newly-integrated but still socially shunned abberant priesthoods, but if she or the clergy she presides over prove the doubts of everyone, she'll likely get the abberants all kicked to the pavement again.

And I like this concept dearly; the High Priestess of an Evil god who needs to make the arrangement work for the sake of the entire following. Problem is, Set is Chaotic flippin' Evil. Both having that much concern for her followers and being unwilling to rock the boat too much seem like sharply non-Chaotic, non-Evil qualities.

So how do I balance this character out as Chaotic or Neutral Evil (as much as CN is possible, it might mess with the theme of internal conflict) while still giving her the appropriate traits to make this all work?

Thanks for all your help. ^_^

[Nifft]

1 - Secretly cause big problems.

2 - Publicly solve the problems you caused.

3 - Claim credit. "Why isn't it lucky that you have me? I appeased the wrath of XXX and solved the problem."

---

Also: Secretly solve local problems by showing the people in charge evil solutions. Like, for example, if it's really cold and difficult to survive on some mountain plateau, show the chief how just a single human sacrifice every year can ward off the chill. And it doesn't even need to be one of his own citizens which gets sacrificed! Any passing stranger will work just as well.

[Mechalich]

Firstly, I would say that this priestess should be incredibly charismatic - people should want to follow her, she should ooze style and make everything she does, regardless of how vile, seem incredibly awesome.

Second, take whatever flaws there are in this society (slavery, water-rationing, required tithes to the temples) that the people don't like and have Set denounce them as tools of the foul, self-righteous other gods. Promise that, by casting down the old order you can make the world new and better, don't make a point of saying that by raising up the low you'll be visiting horrible torments upon the high, and carefully avoid mentioning that the demons you'll be summoning to conduct heavy labor require a periodic meal of babies.

Third, show gains in the short term. Chaotic evil doesn't worry about sustainability. You don't have to shift loyalty forever, just ramp up the process behind society - with chains and whips as needed - and claim glorious growth. once you've got the people worshipping you, it doesn't matter that the kingdom is collapsing.

Chaotic evil is not good at sustained anything - but it can rock out pretty hard to the darkness in the short term.

[Reltzik]

Make her a real long-term thinker. Sure, EVENTUALLY she's going to want to bring the whole system crashing down into chaos, disorder, and anarchy. But that's about 500 gambits and 2 centuries in the future. For now, she's building up the tools, situation, and power required for that end.

So for the moment, she's going to push reforms that are badly desired, but throw everyone for a loop and undermine society in subtle ways that can't really be traced back to her. Ending slavery by replacing slaves with animated dead.... whoops! Created an underclass of freed slaves with no employment prospects! Gee, Ma'at should really do a better job of keeping them in check! Arranging for troublesome foreigners to have their own section of the city assigned, so that they have time to assimilate (IIRC, Set was god of foreigners)... whoops, ghetto conditions driving them to Set worship and creating a useful army of rabble!

You could also go the Emperor Palpatine route, though that's becoming a bit cliche. Be chaotic in that you're playing all sides in every conflict, so that when one side wins she's the one who backed them. The chaotic part is that she keeps stirring up new conflicts so that she can side with the victor, and that she wings it as things unfold naturally rather than picking winners and losers ahead of time.

[Hawkstar]

Why does she have to be subtle?

The deal with Aberrant/Unsavory gods, especially the more powerful ones, is "Worship and obey me, or I'll do even worse stuff to you!". Freedom of religion isn't to protect pratitioners from persecution of their religion - it's to protect would-be persecutors from the wrath of their target God, and keep society alive amidst the wrath of squabbling deities. The laws of society in a world with active and powerful gods such as the Pharaonic Pantheon (And especially the Greek pantheon) aren't so much to serve as a powerful hammer to unite people, but to serve as frantic little yellow post-it notes with cryptic instructions to avoid pissing off too many superpowerful entities. Trying to kick the 'aberrant' gods to the pavement is a good way to lose your foot, if not more.

When dealing with cosmic issues like this, do not assume Justice Will Prevail.

[NichG]

Expanding on Hawkstar's post.

First I think you have to answer 'why would a person become a follower of a horrible entity?'. In D&D discussions the default response usually goes to 'they'll be happier in hell', but I think that underestimates just how screwed up human psychology can be.

The thing about a greater deity for most people is, you basically have no recourse. Sure there are also Good deities who supposedly keep the evil ones in balance, but that isn't going to protect you if Set decides to actually focus his attention and anger on you or something you're a part of (like, say, your home city or your home civilization) for whatever reason. In that kind of situation, Stockholm syndrome wouldn't be too uncommon - you have no recourse, so to protect yourself you could seek defenders (and hope you can make them proactively care enough to defend you), or you could ingratiate yourself to Set in the hope that that will make him direct his tendencies elsewhere.

That kind of placation can become tied with all sorts of 'necessary evil' practices - its not For The Evulz, its because (in the minds of the worshippers) a few human sacrifices is a fair price to pay to keep the desert from rising up and swallowing the city, killing everybody. The priesthood could be seen as a sort of early warning system and tolerated for that reason - its not that they're going to try to get Set to do horrible things to everyone, but rather that maybe they can let everyone know if Set is pissed off for some reason and is about to unleash some deific wrath in their general direction.

So the kind of evil that this NPC would partake in would be that sort of thing - 'I want to save everyone from Set's wrath, really I do, but he will not listen to our pleas unless we show our sincerity' and so on. That kind of evil drags others along - its not just personal villainy, but its actually something that can spread through a society via being first accepted, then eventually becoming commonplace or necessary.

[Vrock_Summoner]

Why does she have to be subtle?

The deal with Aberrant/Unsavory gods, especially the more powerful ones, is "Worship and obey me, or I'll do even worse stuff to you!". Freedom of religion isn't to protect pratitioners from persecution of their religion - it's to protect would-be persecutors from the wrath of their target God, and keep society alive amidst the wrath of squabbling deities. The laws of society in a world with active and powerful gods such as the Pharaonic Pantheon (And especially the Greek pantheon) aren't so much to serve as a powerful hammer to unite people, but to serve as frantic little yellow post-it notes with cryptic instructions to avoid pissing off too many superpowerful entities. Trying to kick the 'aberrant' gods to the pavement is a good way to lose your foot, if not more.

When dealing with cosmic issues like this, do not assume Justice Will Prevail.
The problem with this line of thought in relation to the setting is that they've spent thousands of years doing just fine not letting the Evil gods be part of the pantheon. There's just way more anti-Evil in the pantheon than Evil, and Set isn't particularly more likely to destroy a place now that he's allowed to be considered part of the pantheon. It's three Greater Deities against one, and Set doesn't have any meaningful forces backing him against that imbalance at this point; if he wants to bury a city to cow people into focusing their worship on him (or, worse yet, worshiping him exclusively, as opposed to the "focused worship on you but general worship for whole pantheon" that normally happens), the other gods will likely annihilate all of his focused worshipers (who, mind you, have now largely become a public group) to "persuade" every other significant Evil being to not screw around with cosmological principles. And there's safety in numbers; Set likely couldn't protect his worshipers from the full onslaught of the other deities even if he cared to, but the other gods could likely defend at least a fair majority of those who shun Set.

tl;dr: As things are now, if Set (or his High Priestess, as the case may be) does anything to spark a deific war, Set does not in any way, shape, or form come out any way but further back than he started.

[NichG]

The thing about Chaotic Evil is that Set may not even really be trying to play the same game as the other deities. For example, what if he actually really doesn't care about his worshippers at all? If the other gods kill them then 'Hey guys! You finally decided to join me in having fun killing humans? Great!'.

It only really works if you've been running things consistently with this. The other deities obviously can't get rid of Set or they would have used their numbers advantage to do so already. So for whatever reason, they tolerate him mucking around in the deserts, starting up sandstorms, driving away life-giving rains, and generally being a menace. But whatever that kind of menace is, it has to be less bad than what would happen if they either tried to fight a war against Set (for instance, if he has some kind of nuclear option and the will to use it if - the other deities might be rid of Set but also lose the world in the process, so they let him be within some boundaries) or if they actually succeeded (if e.g. Set is necessary for some kind of cosmic-scale balance).

From that point of view, a hundred or even a thousand human victims each year is just not going to be a big enough deal to spark a deific war, so Set can get away with it - but it certainly would be a big deal for the humans, who each have a chance of being one of those hundred or thousand victims.

[Nifft]

It only really works if you've been running things consistently with this. The other deities obviously can't get rid of Set or they would have used their numbers advantage to do so already. So for whatever reason, they tolerate him mucking around in the deserts, starting up sandstorms, driving away life-giving rains, and generally being a menace. But whatever that kind of menace is, it has to be less bad than what would happen if they either tried to fight a war against Set (for instance, if he has some kind of nuclear option and the will to use it if - the other deities might be rid of Set but also lose the world in the process, so they let him be within some boundaries) or if they actually succeeded (if e.g. Set is necessary for some kind of cosmic-scale balance).

Yeah, good point.

The balance might not even be cosmic-scale.

It might be as simple as: if Set weren't out there making hell in the wilderness, then the dragons / demons / jawas would have invaded by now.