A deity reversed its alignment...

[Inevitability]

Inspired by the 'Evolving Deities' thread.

Imagine the following: a major deity (pick one) abruptly and permanently changes its own alignment. And we're not talking a LG -> NG shift either, no, this deity completely turned its own alignment around (let's say it used Mindrape or voluntarily failed its save against a Helm of Opposite Alignment).

What reasons could the deity have had for doing this? What consequences (both immediate and long-term) would this have on the campaign world? How would society change? Don't hesitate to post your ideas!

[LTwerewolf]

Insert Pelor the Burning Hate here

[Red Fel]

Insert Pelor the Burning Hate here

That's not a change.

Pelor is just Zarus in disguise.

[JBarca]

Insert Pelor the Burning Hate here

Good point. It would be interesting to see a Good Pelor in a campaign. It would probably throw off the balance a little, having such a powerful god switch sides. We'd probably see some wide-ranging Artifact-hunting going on, since the Burning Hate tended to employ rather destructive weapons prior to his transformation.

Seriously, though, the interesting thing to look at here would probably be the "racial" deities. Would Drow and "normal" Elves switch deities, or would they switch alignments? Would Drow suddenly all be Chaotic Good? Would the special snowflake Drow be sadistic murderers? Would Elves immediately set out to destroy their peaceful environments? Or would we have High Elves worshiping The Spider Goddess?

It would make for some interesting trope reversals, too. Dwarves tending toward Chaos, Undead-favoring deities tending toward Goodness, Nature deities inspiring their followers to burn civilization to the ground to defend the forest, etc. Ok, so that last one isn't much of a reversal, but it'd be the norm rather than the "I'm the token Evil PC or BBEG" exception.

[Red Fel]

Seriously, though, the interesting thing to look at here would probably be the "racial" deities. Would Drow and "normal" Elves switch deities, or would they switch alignments? Would Drow suddenly all be Chaotic Good? Would the special snowflake Drow be sadistic murderers? Would Elves immediately set out to destroy their peaceful environments? Or would we have High Elves worshiping The Spider Goddess?

To be fair - and as pointed out in the other thread - this is exactly what happened to Lolth. She was once a Good and beautiful Elf goddess, stuff went south and she went super-Evil. And she took all the Drow with her and basically made their lives a self-destructive heck for craps and giggles.

[Telonius]

I'm imagining somebody showing up to the Paladin recruiting station wearing a Holy Symbol of the Church of Erythnul (Reformed). "Oh, no, we do all of our slaughtering in the service of Good and Law now."

[JBarca]

To be fair - and as pointed out in the other thread - this is exactly what happened to Lolth. She was once a Good and beautiful Elf goddess, stuff went south and she went super-Evil. And she took all the Drow with her and basically made their lives a self-destructive heck for craps and giggles.

Really? Nifty. I hadn't looked at the inspiration thread (until now). And my knowledge on the backgrounds of the gods is definitely lacking.

[LTwerewolf]

That's not a change.

Pelor is just Zarus in disguise.

What I was saying without any explanation whatsoever was that Pelor the Burning Hate would turn into just regular Pelor, and actually be a good god.

[Strigon]

What would be the effects on Clerics of the god?
I'm sure most wouldn't want to switch alignments, so they'd have to lose their powers. What would happen after that, in general?

[Inevitability]

What would be the effects on Clerics of the god?
I'm sure most wouldn't want to switch alignments, so they'd have to lose their powers. What would happen after that, in general?

I'd say quite a few Heretics of the Faith would pop up. It would let all LN, CN, NG, and NE clerics regain their powers, assuming they used to have the same alignment as their deity.

[Andezzar]

Insert Pelor the Burning Hate here


That's not a change.

Pelor is just Zarus in disguise.Not sure if such things are established in D&D canon, but wouldn't it be interesting if either aspect of Pelor came to be through the belief of certain followers? So the Burning Hate came to be because certain people looked at Pelor's doctrine, the practices of his priests etc. and deduced that he must be evil and instead of waging war against his followers, started worshipping that concept. Some time later the Burning Hate becomes a veritable deity. I like the concept that a deity's power is proportional to the power of its followers' belief.

Whether deities can change their alignment ultimately comes down to whether deities have free will. Given that at least in the forgotten realms several mortals have become deities and there is no indication they lost their free will in the process, I think they should still be free willed. So deities could change their alignment just as easily as mortals. The reasons why they would want to probably also as diverse as the reason of mortals.

[Geddy2112]

As I said in the evolving deities thread, Doul Brau was a neutral good god, and after he went on vacation he saw some things and his mind got warped to LE and he became Zon Kuthon. He still embodies the same ideas of "beauty, pleasure, and happiness" but they are warped into pain, suffering, and macabre horror. Now the world knows pain, and he also got darkness and shadow, bringing it to the world. Along with some weird hierarchy of only the strong surviving, as the strong can endure the most agony.

He pulled a Nietzsche and stared too long into the abyss, and it stared back.

[Zaq]

Probably depends on how the god's portfolio changes and how they communicate their change to their followers.

I mean, some deities can keep mostly their same portfolio. Ehlonna becomes NE? She's still the goddess of the woodlands, but now she's going to focus more on the harmful and destructive side of the woodlands rather than the caring and nurturing side. (Kinda like Obad-Hai already is, only actively aggressive instead of just "yup, those are wolves, and they're doing what wolves do, so deal with it.") Yeah, it makes some existing fluff awkward, but that's kind of the entire point of this exercise, is it not?

Some deities would have a really hard time with their portfolio, though. St. Cuthbert becomes CN? His whole deal is about just retribution. That's . . . hard to square with being firmly CN (and we're talking deity-level CN, not just average Joe CN). I mean, maybe he could be Disproportionate Response Man (http://www.smbc-comics.com/index.php?id=2404)? Or he becomes fickle and punishes some crimes but not others? I dunno how that would work. It doesn't make a whole lot of sense, so you'd have to really change a lot about the deity in order for him to actually still make sense as "anti-St. Cuthbert" instead of just a random new CN deity.

Things would also depend on how the deity interacts with their followers. I mean, by RAW, Clerics would all lose their powers unless they adopted the new alignment, adopted a new deity, or became devoted to an ideal instead of the deity (and there's a lot of variance as to how intentional each of those changes could be for each character). Would the followers notice anything beyond that, though? A deity who doesn't directly intervene in mortal affairs much might not give their followers much of a way of knowing that they'd changed alignment. Or, alternatively, the deity could make it incredibly obvious (where, at a minimum, every divine character who gets power from that deity would have some idea what was going on, even if they wouldn't know why it was happening or how to appropriately respond). If it's more secret, you could have lots of tension within each church about some clergy suspecting what was going on and some clergy accusing the others of heresy and you'd have rumors and information-based conflict and that sort of thing. If it's more public, you'll have a huge response even outside the church (the gods matter even if you aren't a divine caster; this is a universe where deities provably exist and provably affect the mortal world, so even characters who aren't devout are still going to have to think about this sort of thing), you might have a huge outside opposition to the new church, and so on and so forth. Either way is going to involve lots of crises of faith, but the forms those crises of faith take would be different.

Basically, as always, the devil is in the details.