Creating new gods for Pyria - all ideas and suggestions welcome.

[rferries]

Here's my stab at the conflicting mix of domains you mentioned. :)

Hierarch

Titles: The Benevolent Dictator, The Hanging Dagger
Home: The Plane of Shadow
Alignment: Neutral Good
Portfolio: Non-democratic governments, state-delivered justice, night
Worshipers: Aristocrats, Paladins, Rogues, Commoners
Cleric Alignments:
LG NG CG
LN N CN
LE NE CE
Domains: Darkness, Good, Retribution, Shadow, Tyranny
Favored Weapon: Dagger
Symbol: Cold iron dagger affixed to adamantine collar soldered around bearer's neck
Sacred Animal: Spider
Sacred Colors: Black and Grey

The tale of the monarch who reigns from underneath a hanging dagger is well-known, and Hierarch is the personification of that dagger. He bestows mortal castes and sovereigns with the divine right to rule, but they must always remember to rule justly and well lest he strike them down from the darkness.

Hierarch is the god of benevolent dictatorships, of benign secret societies, of powers behind the throne who manipulate ends for the greater good. Inscrutable and mysterious, he is a god of vengeance but strikes down only those who are truly evil. A god of night, he teaches that not all things that that shroud themselves in darkness need be feared or distrusted.

Although Hierarch is a god of Tyranny - of control, manipulation, and domination - he is not a deity of Evil or Law, and not necessarily a god of Community or Nobility. It matters not what kind of society his followers inhabit (be it an aristocracy, magocracy, plutocracy, technocracy...), so long as common citizens are not burdened with the demands and tedium of democracy. Instead, he simply requires that an elite class or individual lead his people with a firm (yet forgiving) hand.

Hierarch manifests as a drider, save that his drow features instead match the race of whomever he is appearing before. He is surrounded by an aura of shadows and ghostly spiderwebs in this form.

Trust your leaders, and your fate is in safe hands.

Lead your people well, or the dagger may fall...