"Don't Screw This Up."

[Seward]

It is an interesting question!

Just for everyone's refreshment, here's the relevant lines from 1206

Just as a side note, I loved the implication that The Dark One is just not that "into" Redcloak. And Durkon trying and failing to try to make him feel better about it.

If you think about it, TDO cares about the artifact Redcloak, not the expendible minion currently wearing it. Where Thor cares about all his followers enough to make them feel good about their personal choices when they died. "You've been Thored!"

Hazards of following a LE deity instead of a NG one (I assume Thor is NG not CG as usually depicted cause he has LG priests. Being patron of dwarves may have dragged him in Lawful direction in this reality)

Yeah, admittedly the "well if [god] is angry at [cleric/paladin], then why don't they revoke their powers?" argument can only ever give us a binary switch. Good talent is hard to find (has been for the past 5 years, at least in my country), and you're not going to fire your highest-performing employee for the slightest transgression...or even a few significant ones. I wonder what other "tools" the gods have in their toolbox for handling errant clerics or paladins without "firing" them.

Traditionally in D&D, you don't grant them the spells they ask for. This can range from "No spells at all" to "a few slots blank" to "I'll give you spells I think you should have instead". All spells for a divine caster are "by permission" of the deity.

It isn't quite the same thing, but I had a favored soul once who really wasn't a fan of his deity of storms, chaos and destruction. He just wanted to be a healer but an ancestor had lost a bet....well anyway he's stuck with it. His spell list was a negotiation. He had to take 1-2 storm/destructive spells for every wuss cure X or restoration type spell. They were so opposed that stuff inbetween (like a combat buff spell) tended to not make the cut. Being a typical adventurer, his life had enough murderhobo aspects to keep his deity happy even if he'd prefer a quieter life.

As a GM, I had a player who wanted to follow a god of prophecy and luck, and what we did is I gave him a spell list every day (most of it randomized, maybe 1 or 2 spells though that might be pretty cool in the upcoming day based on what I knew as a GM). He then tried to "prove" his god gave him the perfect spell list "lucky and prophetic", trying to find a use for every spell that day. It was pretty fun, but sadly that campaign didn't last long. It was a 6thish level story arc so the total # of spells wasn't a big job for me.