What does Lawful Neutral versus Chaotic Neutral divine interplay look like?

[Scalenex]

My world's cosmology in a nutshell is that a monstrous primordial god named Turoch created the universe so he can farm mortal souls and eat them.

He eventually needed assistants to help him manage his soul farm, but he was afraid they would turn on him so he created servants that would quarrel with each other. They put aside their differences long enough to overthrow Turoch and rebuilt the damaged world, but then they went back to quarreling.

My nine deities are all loosely based on the nine traditional D&D alignments, CE, CG, CN, NE, NG, TN, LE, LG, LN but I opted to loosen this up a bit. These are guidelines not straight jackets. Good, Evil, Law, Chaos, and Neutrality exist with lower case letters not capital letters. My world is based on D&D mechanics but I eliminated all spells that treat Good and Evil as an abstract force. There is no equivalent to Detect Evil/Good/Law/Chaos or Protection from Evil/Good/Law/Chaos, etc.

It's possible although rare for a person in my world to serve a deity and get spells granted despite having a drastically different alignment from their god.

Maylar is CE and Hallisan is LG. They are staunch enemies. But they are not enemies because of opposed alignments, they are enemies because of opposed goals. Maylar represents low war and Hallisan represents chivalrous war. Hallisan teaches his followers that the strong should protect the weak and Maylar teaches his followers that the strong should exploit the weak.

Their mortal followers fight and their spirit minions (essentially my equivalent to planar outsiders) fight.

I can pit my NG-NE, CG-LE pairings pretty well for how and when their followers fight by proxy, but I'm not sure how Nami CN and Khemra LN would fight with mortal proxies.

When my nine deities rebelled against Turoch, Khemra made a detailed plan to let the nine beings cooperate which was necessary to their success because getting the Nine to fight together was like herding cats. Nami made a bunch of seemingly arbitrary changes to the plan at the last minute which proved to be necessary because Turoch had discovered the plan against him and when he saw contrary evidence suggesting the planned coup was not happening he was fooled.

After Turoch's death, the Nine agreed to split up the worship of all mortals equally nine ways, but Nami thought mortals should have a choice and bestowed free will on mortal kind, which annoyed Khemra. To this day Khemra still espouses that mortals should worship all nine deities at least a little bit while the other eight have adapted and are for the most part vigorously competing for worshipers.

After Nami gave mortals the Gift of free will, the other gods and goddesses gave mortalkind Gifts (mastery of fire, metalworking, agriculture, music etc) both to shape their behavior and to try to bribe mortals into worshiping them.

Khemra is OCD about everything being in it's proper place and Nami believes change and unpredictability is both enjoyable and good, but for the most part they haven't done any big acts that annoy each other beyond cosmological prehistory. I'm not sure how they feud now that there is a world with castles and dragons and the like.


I haven't paid much attention to the Khemra-Nami rivalry this in my lore building but I gave my players wide latitude to choose their characters as long as they are moderately receptive to doing heroic things, and it just so happens that two of my four players chose to play very pro-Khemra characters and the other two players played mostly secular characters.

I have a skill based system, I don't have levels or classes but the two Khemra characters are roughly equivalent to a socially oriented cloistered cleric and a multi-classed fighter/cleric. The two secular characters are roughly equivalent to a fighter/invoker and a bulky barbarian.

The cloistered cleric is very high ranking and is practically royalty within the Khemra sphere of influence but he makes a point to not throw his weight around and acts with humility even though it's not required. The fighter/cleric is very staunchly pro-polythesist and tries to give the other eight deities their due even if they sometimes make it difficult.

It occurred that maybe I should have Nami affiliated characters mess with the PCs on sheer principle because of their religious affiliation.

Or maybe not. The PCs generally are very nice people and don't go kicking down the doors of chaotic people. But as a player pointed out, chaotic people don't always behave rationally.

[Democratus]

Chaos is about individualism. Law is about collectivism.

CN puts individual freedom above all other concerns.
CL puts adhering to the collective above all other concerns.

A clear reason for the forces of these two alignments to conflict should be apparent.

[zlefin]

It sounds like that in this case; they wouldn't really "fight", only squabble. They wouldn't antagonize each other on any regular basis or have any ill will. They would periodically get into disputes about the best way to handle a situation; but no worse than that. They seem more like an Odd Couple situation or roommates with very different preferences than anything.

If there's no reason for them to feud, then just don't have them feud.

[jjordan]

At the divine level I would say chaotic neutral believes that reality, and divine power, are best served by preserving a balance between good and evil by allowing maximum individual liberty. Proponents are likely to oppose regulation of individual liberties and accept that evil is a necessary component of reality. They will be individualists and will be wary even of temporary, voluntary associations. Lawful neutral believes that reality, and divine power, are best served by preserving a balance between good and evil through the presence of regulation. Proponents are likely to see regulation as being necessary to prevent good or evil from obtaining a decisive advantage. They will tend to favor collective action.

Conflict between the two sides is likely to take place over the question of how and when to keep good and evil balanced. They'll argue specifics but probably won't have major clashes. The lawful neutral group will build organizations and alliances and pursue a slow and steady course. The chaotic neutral group will advance in fits and starts by the actions of small groups of dedicated individuals.

[noob]

At the divine level I would say chaotic neutral believes that reality, and divine power, are best served by preserving a balance between good and evil by allowing maximum individual liberty. Proponents are likely to oppose regulation of individual liberties and accept that evil is a necessary component of reality. They will be individualists and will be wary even of temporary, voluntary associations. Lawful neutral believes that reality, and divine power, are best served by preserving a balance between good and evil through the presence of regulation. Proponents are likely to see regulation as being necessary to prevent good or evil from obtaining a decisive advantage. They will tend to favor collective action.

Conflict between the two sides is likely to take place over the question of how and when to keep good and evil balanced. They'll argue specifics but probably won't have major clashes. The lawful neutral group will build organizations and alliances and pursue a slow and steady course. The chaotic neutral group will advance in fits and starts by the actions of small groups of dedicated individuals.

A "balance between good and evil" does not make sense: balancing good and evil is evil.
Imagine if I told "I am going to encourage people to use their freedom to do evil because the crime rate is way lower than it was 200 years ago" you would surely consider I am an evil person.
The only balance between good and evil a person should seek is one with less evil than it have currently(because if you were seeking one with more evil then it would be evil: increasing the evilness of people is evil) but then you conclude that eventually you should have no evil.
Chaotic neutral should just not care about the balance between good and evil just like how lawful neutral does not care.
You can introduce conflict by making lawful neutral people that believe that making so that everything happens sequentially in a predetermined way is the right thing and making chaotic neutral people that thinks that they do not want to be restrained and bound by the wills of others. (then there would be obviously a lot of chaotic neutral and lawful neutral people not fitting in those categories)

[Pex]

Read about Vorlons and Shadows from Babylon 5.

[jjordan]

A "balance between good and evil" does not make sense: balancing good and evil is evil.

Depends on your cosmology.

[noob]

Depends on your cosmology.

It does not at all: the only way people uses to make a cosmology that is not nonsense that "encourages" balance between good and evil is to make that if evil falls below a threshold then there is more evil stuff that happens and avoiding that "more evil stuff happens" is not balancing good and evil: it is merely trying to prevent the horrible event that happens otherwise by keeping the minimum evil that prevents such thing.
It is because increasing evil is evil so the only way to make it justified is if eviller stuff happens if it is not done ex: one setting where all life ends if there is insufficient evil.(there is multiple stories with exactly that)

There is also cosmologies where the balance between evil and good is an automated thing and where each good action directly causes an evil action of comparable impact and reciprocally but then again it is not something that justifies balancing good and evil because it is already happening automatically due to the rules of the setting.

[Vahnavoi]

A "balance between good and evil" does not make sense: balancing good and evil is evil.

Morally Neutral alignments do not see Good as good and Evil as evil; they see them as (ultimately incorrect) labels for various extremist behaviors. For Lawful Neutral, the highest good is a harmonious collective where nothing threatens societal balance, and life and happiness (actual Good) and death and suffering (actual Evil) are weighed against that goal.

True Neutral applies the same principle to Law and Chaos. They take some state of nature as the most desirable status quo, where all elements exist in right proportion, and see all non-Neutral alignments as extremists who are trying to upset a dynamic system. It's both a socially and ecologically conservative stance where the highest good is preserving the natural world for generations to come.

If this doesn't make sense to you, it's likely because you are adopting a perfectly Good viewpoint; as the saying goes, "Perfect is the enemy of good", that is, from a perfectly Good viewpoint non-good (Neutral) and evil (Evil) are one and the same.

[noob]

Morally Neutral alignments do not see Good as good and Evil as evil; they see them as (ultimately incorrect) labels for various extremist behaviors. For Lawful Neutral, the highest good is a harmonious collective where nothing threatens societal balance, and life and happiness (actual Good) and death and suffering (actual Evil) are weighed against that goal.

True Neutral applies the same principle to Law and Chaos. They take some state of nature as the most desirable status quo, where all elements exist in right proportion, and see all non-Neutral alignments as extremists who are trying to upset a dynamic system. It's both a socially and ecologically conservative stance where the highest good is preserving the natural world for generations to come.

If this doesn't make sense to you, it's likely because you are adopting a perfectly Good viewpoint; as the saying goes, "Perfect is the enemy of good", that is, from a perfectly Good viewpoint non-good (Neutral) and evil (Evil) are one and the same.

So those people said "oh so I am going to rename hedonism in good and exclude non hedonism from good suddenly I can call myself lawful neutral despite seeking things I consider good"
I disagree completely with both those definition of good and of lawful neutral (you described a variant of lawful good: lawful good square which is about being lawful and good and no fun)
There is many ways of being good and you excluded 99% of them from your definition of good.
Ultimately your lawful neutral people are not seeking a balance of "good"(as meaning hedonism) and evil: they are seeking to annihilate both so they are not a proof that people can be seeking a balance between good and evil since the people you mentioned were not seeking a balance only annihilation.
The true neutral people seeking to keep the status quo in terms of amounts of evilness stops being true neutral once they need to increase the amount of evil: if you met in real life someone telling you "there have not been enough murders so now I am murdering you also next I will kidnap your children, rape and torture them because there is also a lack of those latter two against children relatively to what was the norm in the past" you would not call them neutral despite them following norms from nature.
Likewise if you are trying to increase chaos or trying to increase law or trying to increase good you are of the corresponding alignment since you would probably be doing it all your life due to the fact that perceived unbalances have a tendency to grow over time due to the world where there is a lot of things that can snowball together(ex: some people are too successful in imposing their will: they will impose it on more and more people which will subsequently do that too thus snowballing lawfullness then the people which tries to create chaos as a reaction due the perceived unbalance will probably work all their life because the lawfullness snowball can cause the creation of an empire that will last until its decadence happens over time).

[Vahnavoi]

So those people said "oh so I am going to rename hedonism in good and exclude non hedonism from good suddenly I can call myself lawful neutral despite seeking things I consider good"

All Alignments seek things they consider good. They disagree violently on what is or isn't good. The reason why some Alignments are Good and others are Neutral or Evil is because they exist in a cosmic framework where moral statements are facts, where some moral theories are correct where others are not, and thus what a person considers good or evil is not, in fact, any kind of binding statement on what is Good or Evil.

I disagree completely with both those definition of good and of lawful neutral (you described a variant of lawful good: lawful good square which is about being lawful and good and no fun)

Feel free to, but then you're in disagreement with basics of the Alignment system as put forward in first edition AD&D, which established the system.

There is many ways of being good and you excluded 99% of them from your definition of good.

The Alignment system really only establishes three ways to be Good - Lawful, Neutral and Chaotic - and they all seek to promote life and happiness, differing on how they think it should be established. (Law seeks to promote them through collective identy, co-operation and altruism, while Chaos seeks to promote them through maximal freedom and liberty of the individual, Neutral being the middle ground trying to balance group and individual benefit.)

Good does not, and is not meant to, stand for every thing labeled "good" by every variant moral system in existence; in fact, it cannot, since those systems are not always congruent with each other. The way to make the system work is to choose one moral system against which all others are judged - meaning their goods cease to be Good.

Ultimately your lawful neutral people are not seeking a balance of "good"(as meaning hedonism) and evil: they are seeking to annihilate both so they are not a proof that people can be seeking a balance between good and evil since the people you mentioned were not seeking a balance only annihilation.

I did not mention annihilation anywhere; you are arguing against a point I did not make.

The true neutral people seeking to keep the status quo in terms of amounts of evilness stops being true neutral once they need to increase the amount of evil: if you met in real life someone telling you "there have not been enough murders so now I am murdering you also next I will kidnap your children, rape and torture them because there is also a lack of those latter two against children relatively to what was the norm in the past" you would not call them neutral despite them following norms from nature.

That's a strawman and you know it - but for a second, let's entertain this seriously: why would I not call them neutral? In fact, why not call them good? For all you know, I adhere to a moral principle according to which human life is a horrible mistake and humans deserve to suffer.

Likewise if you are trying to increase chaos or trying to increase law or trying to increase good you are of the corresponding alignment since you would probably be doing it all your life due to the fact that perceived unbalances have a tendency to grow over time due to the world where there is a lot of things that can snowball together(ex: some people are too successful in imposing their will: they will impose it on more and more people which will subsequently do that too thus snowballing lawfullness then the people which tries to create chaos as a reaction due the perceived unbalance will probably work all their life because the lawfullness snowball can cause the creation of an empire that will last until its decadence happens over time).

Did you know that in AD&D alignment graph, True Neutral covered the smallest amount of moral terrain, precisely because it was so narrow and it's so easy for a human to be pulled into some other alignment? I doubt you did, because in that case you would've realized how pointless this argument is as a counter to anything I've said.

In any case, your argument presupposed a world where some extreme Alignment is already so powerful that just leading a middle ground life is impossible - you have to take up arms and spend your entire life taking up extreme actions to oppose other extreme actions. It should be obvious that in a system starting from a point of balance doesn't require people to act that way from the get-go and it can take a long time before the system gets that unbalanced, especially if people involved are consciously trying to keep that imbalance from happening.

[jjordan]

It does not at all: the only way people uses to make a cosmology that is not nonsense that "encourages" balance between good and evil is to make that if evil falls below a threshold then there is more evil stuff that happens and avoiding that "more evil stuff happens" is not balancing good and evil: it is merely trying to prevent the horrible event that happens otherwise by keeping the minimum evil that prevents such thing.
It is because increasing evil is evil so the only way to make it justified is if eviller stuff happens if it is not done ex: one setting where all life ends if there is insufficient evil.(there is multiple stories with exactly that)

There is also cosmologies where the balance between evil and good is an automated thing and where each good action directly causes an evil action of comparable impact and reciprocally but then again it is not something that justifies balancing good and evil because it is already happening automatically due to the rules of the setting.

In my multiverse setting some beings which are concerned with the continued existence of existence seek to ensure that the system remains in a generally neutral state. They believe the system can continue indefinitely so long as it doesn't get out of balance. Others seek to push the system towards good, or evil, or order, or chaos for various reasons and with various degrees of concern for the end results. They may believe they can eliminate evil and create a paradise, they may believe they can create a perfectly ordered existence, they may want to control existence, they may want to destroy it, and most of them are willing to risk the destruction of existence in the pursuit of their higher aim. Adherents of various forms of neutrality are not concerned with performing acts of good or evil to maintain balance, they know that others will do that provided the system isn't skewed to prevent them from acting (or they aren't destroyed). And they aren't terribly concerned with individual acts of good or evil, focusing more on the average.

[Calthropstu]

Nami, why is the forest on fire?
Well Khemra, there was a dragon down there.
But dragons don't use fire Nami.
Well Khemra, I figured dragons would be cooler if they breathed fire. So now they do.
NAMI!!!!

I picture Nami and Khemra as good friends, but Nami exasperates Khemra with Her(?) antics. And Khemra annoys Nami with His(?) refusal to "go with the flow."

Wars between the two are quite often. But never really spiteful. More like Khemra deploying his forces saying "Look, it needs to be this way" and Nami deploying hers saying nah bro. Often just to mess with him.

Then both of them teaming up with each other to take LG or CE down a peg.

[noob]

In any case, your argument presupposed a world where some extreme Alignment is already so powerful that just leading a middle ground life is impossible - you have to take up arms and spend your entire life taking up extreme actions to oppose other extreme actions. It should be obvious that in a system starting from a point of balance doesn't require people to act that way from the get-go and it can take a long time before the system gets that unbalanced, especially if people involved are consciously trying to keep that imbalance from happening.

In my vision of the nine alignment system all you have to do to be true neutral is just not be busy acting all ideological (like trying to balance stuff: you stop being true neutral when doing so) and just live your day to day life without striving particularly to be a good person or to harm other nor striving particularly to follow the will of others / apply your will on others / free yourself from the will of others.
So you just have to do nothing exceptional (as in "do not get involved with the extremes") to be true neutral and many people are of this alignment.

All Alignments seek things they consider good. They disagree violently on what is or isn't good. The reason why some Alignments are Good and others are Neutral or Evil is because they exist in a cosmic framework where moral statements are facts, where some moral theories are correct where others are not, and thus what a person considers good or evil is not, in fact, any kind of binding statement on what is Good or Evil.

Feel free to, but then you're in disagreement with basics of the Alignment system as put forward in first edition AD&D, which established the system.

The Alignment system really only establishes three ways to be Good - Lawful, Neutral and Chaotic - and they all seek to promote life and happiness, differing on how they think it should be established. (Law seeks to promote them through collective identy, co-operation and altruism, while Chaos seeks to promote them through maximal freedom and liberty of the individual, Neutral being the middle ground trying to balance group and individual benefit.)

We are not in the "ad&d/ other games" section of roleplaying games so referencing ad&d while talking about alignment is irrelevant here because we are talking about a nine alignment grid system and not a 3 alignment system: in a 9 alignment system people intending to be good through chaos is chaotic good while someone intending to be good independently of chaos or lawfulness is neutral good and someone intending to be good through lawfulness is lawful good.(and none of those people are doing the only thing that allows to be of their alignment: there is many ways to be lawful good)

Good does not, and is not meant to, stand for every thing labeled "good" by every variant moral system in existence; in fact, it cannot, since those systems are not always congruent with each other. The way to make the system work is to choose one moral system against which all others are judged - meaning their goods cease to be Good.

Even in greyhawk there is considerably more ways to be good than in your overly restrictive vision of "what is good"
Hedonism is never mentioned to be the gold standard of good in dnd so even in your "dnd vision of things" it does not works to say that hedonism is good.
Furthermore in dnd there is variations in what is good depending on the setting: for example in dragonlance the "ultimate parragon of good" was someone imposing complete and perfect order through mass mind control.
Finally all dnd settings are cannon in some settings meaning that those all the settings settings (like the forgotten realms) actually have as a cannon that what is good depends on the plane in which you are.
Here we are in a setting made by the one who posted this thread so ask them what is good before making your "hedonism is good" thing.

I did not mention annihilation anywhere; you are arguing against a point I did not make.

You actually did mention that both "good"(as in hedonism which have been associated with evil people more often than with good people in the dnd games I played) and evil were detrimental to those "lawful neutral"(as in lawful good) people therefore it stands that the optimal behaviour for them is to stamp out both (through measures like putting in prison the bad people(against evil) and overcharging luxury products (against hedonism)) which coincidentally corresponds to what many successful governments do and when they stop being good enough at stamping out hedonism then decadence happens(which is a bad thing) and when they stop being good enough at stamping evil then crime becomes widespread(a bad thing too).

That's a strawman and you know it - but for a second, let's entertain this seriously: why would I not call them neutral? In fact, why not call them good? For all you know, I adhere to a moral principle according to which human life is a horrible mistake and humans deserve to suffer.

If you consider human life is an horrible mistake and that all humans deserves to die then you should not be posting in this thread and instead be thinking about how to run for president.
You would not be calling that person neutral because you would be the individual that is harmed and statistically humans that are alive are more likely to not like dying than to like dying(because those who likes dying die more often).

Did you know that in AD&D alignment graph, True Neutral covered the smallest amount of moral terrain, precisely because it was so narrow and it's so easy for a human to be pulled into some other alignment? I doubt you did, because in that case you would've realized how pointless this argument is as a counter to anything I've said.

And in the 9 alignment grid system it is often the most represented alignment because the people that are not trying or wanting to strive for any particular ideal and just living are true neutral.

[Vahnavoi]

1st edition AD&D invented and codified the nine alignment grid; I have been talking about it all this time. The fact that you missed this makes it pointless to argue the details.

For anyone else, AD&D continues to be relevant because later editions do not actually explain nine grid Alignment any better - 2nd, 3rd, Pathfinder and 5th copy the superficial shape of the system, but subtly change the definitions of words, to no real improvement. Most other games, including most versions of D&D, don't even use it. If you want to use the nine Alignments, you're equally well or better off getting first edition AD&D core text on Alignment, than with any other treatise on the subject.

[KorvinStarmast]

What does Lawful Neutral versus Chaotic Neutral divine interplay look like?

Druids, all the way down.

[Ettina]

It looks like a child making block towers while the cat knocks the blocks off the table.

[Calthropstu]

It looks like a child making block towers while the cat knocks the blocks off the table.

I needed that laugh. Thank you.

[Scalenex]

Thank you everyone for the thoughtful replies, my favorite one is this one \/

Nami, why is the forest on fire?
Well Khemra, there was a dragon down there.
But dragons don't use fire Nami.
Well Khemra, I figured dragons would be cooler if they breathed fire. So now they do.
NAMI!!!!

That is pretty much what I envisioned things look like on the deity scale.

Nami kind of does this to everyone, not just Khemra. She makes changes she thinks are "cooler" and this often annoys her divine brothers and sisters.

I'm just not sure how this would apply to their mortal followers.

I picture Nami and Khemra as good friends, but Nami exasperates Khemra with Her(?) antics. And Khemra annoys Nami with His(?) refusal to "go with the flow."

Wars between the two are quite often. But never really spiteful. More like Khemra deploying his forces saying "Look, it needs to be this way" and Nami deploying hers saying nah bro. Often just to mess with him.

Then both of them teaming up with each other to take LG or CE down a peg.

I hadn't pictured things this way, but I like the way you think.



So I used the nine alignments as a jumping off point, but I don't want my nine deities to be defined solely by their alignment. At this point I am realizing that my evil characters have a lot more nuance and depth than my Good and Neutral characters.

All nine of my deities cooperated to take down Turoch and then they cooperated to rebuild the universe after the battle. What unites the three evil deities in my pantheon is not that they delight in being "Evil!". Phidas (LE), Greymoria (NE), and Maylar (CE) all believe that their contribution in the battle against Turoch was far more bigger than the other eight deities' contributions and therefore they deserve a bigger piece of "the pie." The three evil deities feel cheated what they are owed by mortalkind and their eight divine siblings so they lash out and scheme to "make things fair."

The three good deities Hallisan (LG), Mera (NG), and Zarthus (CG) don't have as much depth. They just have a general compassion for mortals and have differing ideas on what is the best way to help people.

The three neutral deities are not heartless. They certainly don't want mortals to suffer, but they are more big picture focused. They want to stop cataclysms from destroying the world/universe. About every 50,000 to 100,000 years, a giant cataclysm kills 90% of all living things. At least once a month, an evil warlord sacking an innocent village. The neutral deities don't want to waste too much time defending individuals and want to make sure the world itself can resist. Nami (CN) believes individualism and flexibility makes the world stronger. Khemra (LN) believes cooperation and careful planning makes the world stronger. Korus (TN) chooses to focus on keeping the natural world strong.



Looking at team Lawful: Hallisan (LG), Phidas (LE), Khemra (LN). While the three lawful deities and their minions reach out to all mortals, their priesthoods prefer to focus on swaying the rich and powerful. All three priesthoods are constantly licking the boots of kings and queens to push their governments towards their respective deities, as the three lawful priesthoods are locked in a political cold war.

Hallisan is Lawful Good. He is military minded and likes to push chivalry, honor, and hard work. He is also big with dwarves because his Dominion over nature is the minerals of the earth and his Gift to mortals is metalworking and general handicraft. Hallisan's priesthood (nicknamed the Guardians) is usually very influential among career soldiers and this helps lobby kings and queens.

Hallisan's portfolio includes but is not limited to: stone, minerals, metalwork, mining, chivalry codes, bravery, just war, oaths of service, strength, protection, life stones, dwarves, nation of Kantoc and many smaller nations


Phidas is Lawful Evil. He is the divine archetype of the scheming advisor. Phidas got his horribly disfigured fighting the primordial god Turoch, so he always wears a mask. This is also symbolic of him hiding his dark side behind a respectable facade. His followers are not required to wear masks, but they usually wear masks during formal ceremonies, hence Phidas' core followers are nicknamed "the Masks."

He likes to push order with harsh punishment's for failure. Turoch, the evil primordial god is dead, but his anger and hunger remains and is passively trying to tear up the world (essentially this is the origin of the Negative Energy Plane). Since Turoch promised "I will return!" and since he said "Phidas I'll kill you first!" Because of this, the other eight deities trust Phidas to help maintain the safeguards against Turoch returning in any form.

Phidas' Dominion over nature is literally holding the universe together against Turoch. Phidas' Gift to mortals is currency and commerce. Phidas' priesthood is very influential with merchants and this helps lobby kings and queens.

Phidas' portfolio includes but is not limited to: Defense against the Void, oaths/contracts, commerce, legal cunning, disguises, pragmatic ruthlessness, protection, life stones, subterranean monsters


Khemra, as mentioned is my Lawful Good goddess. Her Dominion over nature is the sun. Her Gift to mortal-kind is literacy. She was hoping that the establishment of writing would make it easier to maintain tradition. Her priesthood (nicknamed the Keepers) is influential among bureaucrats and courtiers and this helps lobby kings and queens.

Khemra's portfolio includes but is not limited to: The sun, literacy, history, law, oaths of fealty, hierarchies, translators, traditions, travel, regulation of the Nine as a whole, grandeur, royalty


Most mortals worship the Chaotic deities on their holidays and pay them very little attention the rest of the year though three Chaotic gods reach out to counter-cultural groups. Artists and performers, criminals, barbarian tribes, distinctive minority groups, and seminomadic civilized people (shepherds, cattle ranchers, etc).


Originally, the nine deities agreed to split the each day between 12 hours of darkness and 12 hours of light, but Zarthus (CG) thought 12 hours of total darkness is too much, so he became the god of the moon. The full moon has great power and will reveal lycanthrope, metamorphs, illusionists, and other hidden evil forces for what they are. The moon is his Dominion over nature. Art and music is his Gift to mortal-kind. Just like the moon shines a light in the darkness, Zarthus' worshipers use ceremonial lanterns in and around their temples and worship ceremonies, ergo Zarthus' core worshippers are nicknamed "the Lanterns."

(CG) Zarthus' has no formal distinctions among his clergy and core followers but there is an informal division between the Patrons (Zarthus worshipers who focus on spreading art and music), the Homesteaders (Zarthus worshipers who focus on creating small autonomous self governing communities) and Vindicators (Zarthus worshipers who use violence or the threat of violence to keep tyrannical rulers in line).

Zarthus portfolio includes but is not limited to: the moon, light, exposing the corrupt, finding the hidden, music, art, self-reliance, community, bastards, half-breeds, orphans, freedom, vengeance, trickery


Maylar is Chaotic Evil. Maylar preaches social Darwinism and believes that "that which does not kill you makes you stronger." If you are not strong enough to survive the horrible things Maylar does to you, you didn't deserve to live. If you survive Maylar's minions and schemes, you have earned Maylar's respect. Maylar's core followers call themselves "The Testers of Strength" which is usually shortened to "Testers." He is the only evil deity I have that almost never holds a grudge when he is thwarted because he half-wants to be thwarted.

Maylar's Dominion over nature is disease and decay. Maylar's Gift to mortal-kind is hunting and animal husbandry (so mortals would learn that they can advance themselves by killing and dominating lesser creatures).

Maylar's porfolio includes but is not limited to: Disease, decay, hunting, animal husbandry, murder, debauchery, cunning in battle, war, strength, toughness, Darwinism, terror, orcs

In my RPG campaign, I have been using Testers to fill the role of "Villain of the Week" stories but I have not have any long-term or recurring villains be affiliated with Maylar. In fact I've done this so much, I should probably put Maylar on the shelf for a while. That's part of the reason I have been pondering Nami antagonists.


Nami is Chaotic Neutral. Her Dominion over nature is weather (which is why weather changes so often). Her Gift to mortal-kind is free will. Nami was the first deity to give a Gift to mortal-kind eventually prompting the other eight deities to give out their own Gifts to bribe mortals into worshipping them now that worship was no longer guaranteed.

Nami's portfolio includes but is not limited to: Weather, freedom, prophecy, madness, arson, theft, travel, merriment, chaos, unorthodox wisdom, warlocks, humor, orcs, gnolls

Nami's core followers are nicknamed the Rovers on the Wind or simply "the Rovers" because Nami's followers are usually nomadic and Nami is the goddess of winds. Of all my nine deities, Nami probably has the fewest proselytizers. The Rovers accept anyone who wants to join them but they don't actively recruit. Most mortals in my world will have a big party on Nami's holy days and ignore her the rest of the year. Most regions in my world have their special holy day to Nami at different times of the year, so a great many Rovers run a circuit presiding on six or seven annual Nami festivals every year.

Nami's Rovers also have a subgroup jokingly nicknamed "Sedentary Rovers" because they don't travel around a lot, but they maintain inns and hospitals at travel junctions. Most sedentary rovers also maintain a winery, brewery, or distillery. Nami doesn't get a lot of monetary donations but she is the goddess of alcoholic beverages so her followers often sell wine and spirits to make extra coin.

All of my priesthoods have fringe groups that don't play well with the mainstream followers of their god or goddess. The Rovers have very little formal structure and usually don't bat an eye at a Rover with a different interpretation of Nami's guidelines. The Bachites are a fringe group of Rovers that take an absolute view of personal freedom that ignores the rights of others, so the group leans heavily towards Chaotic Evil. The Gentle Rain are a fringe group of Rovers that believe freedom and responsibility are tightly wound and encourage acts of charity, so the group leans heavily towards Chaotic Good. The Bacchites and Gentle Rain are starting to war on each other and they are turning to the Testers and Lanterns for allies which is a major faux passe. Nami had ecclesiastical civil wars in the past, but they are not supposed to invite outsiders into their internal struggles.

The nine deities in my world have to spread their power between empowering spell-casting mortals and creating spirit minions. Nami has very few spell-casting mortals so she lots of energy to create a bunch of spirit minions. If the PCs face a Nami antagonist it will probably be an extra-planar Nami creature, but I'm not sure what a creature like this would want to do.


Anyway, I mentioned the Lawful deities focus on swaying the elites and the Chaotic deities focus on nomads and counter cultural groups. The Neutral deities focus on the teaming masses of peasants.

Mera (NG) has a lot of worship from peasants because she is the goddess of happy families and communities and people like their communities and families to be happy. Her Dominion over nature is water. Her Gift to mortals is control over fire, especially hearth fires, (this irked Khemra because it seemed like Mera was overstepping her bounds but this is practically the only time Mera overstepped her bounds whereas the other deities push the envelope all the time. Mera has a lot of temples but they tend to be small and poor temples. Her core followers call themselves the "Tenders of the Sacred Hearth" shortened into "The Tenders." Mera's detractors say her followers are indeed tender and weak.
Mera's portfolio includes but is not li


Korus (TN) has Dominion over ecosystems and his Gift to mortal-kind is agriculture. Peasants want to please the god who makes their crops grow and barbarian nomads need to please the god that bestows fertility on the plants and animals they hunt and gather, so Korus has LOTS of worshipers. Korus is slow to anger, but when he gets pissed off he tends to create famines or metamorphically release the Kraken which usually takes the form of a mini-terasque.

Korus' core followers are called Stewards. The Stewards of the Dominion are essentially tree-hugging druids and the Stewards of the Gift are essentially farmer-friendly clerics. The two groups of Stewards don't get along great because farmland and the wilderness often come at the expense of the other.

Korus' portfolio includes but is not limited to: The seasons, predator/prey balance, forests, fishing, agriculture, plant creatures, horses and horse-like creatures, compromises, prophecy, LGBT inclusion.



Greymoria (NE) is trapped in a negative cycle. She is feared but she is not loved. She has the fewest affectionate mortals because she is so terrifying. Greymoria then lashes out by creating monsters or curses to punish mortal-kind for not loving her deeply enough and this causes fewer people to love her which causes her to lash out again.

The other two evil deities, Phidas (LE) and Maylar (CE) are less scary than Greymoria and they don't really mind being feared instead of being loved.

Turoch the primordial god created the universe to feast on souls. Greymoria took some of the souls that were part of his food tribute and tortured them horrifically, so that they were poisonous to Turoch when consumed, but a lot of these mutilated souls were not eaten and became the spiritual ancestors of all undead. In the eyes of most mortals, this is far scarier than the evil things that Phidas and Maylar do.

Greymoria's few and proud core followers call themselves the Children of the Dark Mother, commonly shortened into "the Children." They often dedicate themselves solely to inflicting miseries on Mera worshipers because Greymoria is wicked jealous that her sister has more worshipers than any other deities while only half trying.

A fringe group of Greymoria worshipers try the crazy idea of winning more Greymoria worshipers by being nice to the general population, showcasing that arcane magic can be used to make their lives' better. Much to the consternation of Greymoria's sociopathic mainstream Children, the cuddly Children are growing in numbers and support.

Greymoria's portfolio includes but is not limited to: Magic, wizards, warlocks, sorcerers, monsters, necromancy, poison, drowning, darkness, secrets, spite, jealousy, spiders and spiderlike monsters.

I frequently use the Children as red herrings to distract from the real villains (who are usually Maylar affiliated or purely secular), though I think my players are growing wise to this.

[GloatingSwine]

It seems like one of your law vs chaos conflicts might be able to come from collected knowledge vs. living experience.

The lawful side seeks to make a perfect record of all things that were and are, (especially given that the gift of Khemra was literacy). Taken to extremes that can mean suppression of change, because one way to ensure the archive remains a true and perfect record is if the things the archive is about stay as they are forever.

The chaotic side seeks to push mortals to new experiences, and so will seek to create change for the sake of change, and will resist the "dead" knowledge of Khemra's record. After all, if something is recorded in perfect detail for anyone to read about, nobody else can truly experience it as new. If Nami's main agents are spirit creatures they should be seeking to disrupt anything that has gone unchanged for too long, which means they can be antagonistic because those disruptions can have negative consequences, at least in the short term, and seeking to eliminate things from recorded knowledge so they can be found anew.

[Segev]

As written, others' notions of the two as a sort of "buddy cop" duo who exasperate each other could work. But is that what you want? Genuine question, not rhetorical. Do you have a firm idea of how deep you want this conflict to run?

As has been mentioned in another thread, the original Law/Chaos divide in D&D was "civilization vs. the wild." You can have a very solid conflict there. Of course, this is a little messed up with "druids" of D&D being neutral on the L/C axis, but you can recover that if your druids are more about controlled chaos and creative destruction, treating things as gardens with guided evolution.

If you want deep enmity and opposition, Khemra could be a god of organization and civilization who wants to eliminate disorder, while Nami is a goddess of nature, red in tooth and claw but beautiful in its terrible majesty who sees civilization and order as things that need to be torn apart to make room for the next Big Thing. Khemra talks a good game about the beauty and glory of organized building, while Nami talks a great game about the need to change to grow and not get stuck on old things that hold you back. Both have good points about the other's limitations: Nami poitns out that Khemra would eventually stagnate and keep everything frozen in perpetual cycles of unchanging, agency-free mechanistic order, never growing for fear of losing something already built; Khemra points out that Nami will destroy and slaughter and revel in the "great ones" who use their choices to rip apart even more than they create. This is why both are morally neutral: both consider lots of "acceptable sacrifices" for their ideals, while they consider what they other values to be on that list of things to sacrifice and most mortals would consider both to have good points, but both to be okay with monstrosity.

This version would have them at perpetual war with mutually exclusive drives and goals.

I think I find the "buddy cop" "good friends who exasperate each other" thing more amusing, but for an epic conflict of philosophy, I suggest something else to keep L/C as polarized as G/E.

[Vahnavoi]

As has been mentioned in another thread, the original Law/Chaos divide in D&D was "civilization vs. the wild." You can have a very solid conflict there. Of course, this is a little messed up with "druids" of D&D being neutral on the L/C axis, but you can recover that if your druids are more about controlled chaos and creative destruction, treating things as gardens with guided evolution.

Neutral Druids are more of an AD&D thing, where Law versus Chaos is a matter of collectivism versus individualism, and the natural world is True Neutral.

Though if you want to justify Neutral Druids in a Law of Civilization versus Chaos of Nature conflict, that's easy enough: as human(oid) priests of nature, they are intermediaries, mediums between the two. Druids exists at the border of the two worlds - a literal border, such as a coast or forestline or root of a mountain - trying to keep Law from extinquishing Chaos and vice versa.

[Segev]

Neutral Druids are more of an AD&D thing, where Law versus Chaos is a matter of collectivism versus individualism, and the natural world is True Neutral.

Though if you want to justify Neutral Druids in a Law of Civilization versus Chaos of Nature conflict, that's easy enough: as human(oid) priests of nature, they are intermediaries, mediums between the two. Druids exists at the border of the two worlds - a literal border, such as a coast or forestline or root of a mountain - trying to keep Law from extinquishing Chaos and vice versa.

I like that; that's pretty good.

[Scalenex]

I think I like the idea of Nami and Khemra being frienemies, dysfunctional sisters, or buddy cops more than being dire enemies.

Though I guess since my deities are not 100% willing and able to communicate their wishes to their followers, they could have followers fight each other not realizing their goddesses don't want them to fight.

Neutral Druids are more of an AD&D thing, where Law versus Chaos is a matter of collectivism versus individualism, and the natural world is True Neutral.

Though if you want to justify Neutral Druids in a Law of Civilization versus Chaos of Nature conflict, that's easy enough: as human(oid) priests of nature, they are intermediaries, mediums between the two. Druids exists at the border of the two worlds - a literal border, such as a coast or forestline or root of a mountain - trying to keep Law from extinquishing Chaos and vice versa.

I'm not sure about neutral druids, but my nature god/goddess is his/her worst enemy. S/he is torn between law and chaos, good and evil, civilization and the wild, masculinity/femnity, etc

Literal borders was something I was pondering for him/her.

The humans and demihumans are aware that the ocean has merfolk and other humanoid sea creatures, but they assume that aquatic humanoids are pale imitations of humans and elves.

The merfolk and other aquatic humanoids are aware that the land has humans and other humanoid land creatures, but they assume that aquatic humanoids are pale imitations of merfolk.

Under the sea, my nine gods and goddesses have slightly different names and slightly different personalities (many are gender swapped not that it matters much.) Alignment is less important under the sea. The main philosophical argument among the sea goddesses is "How should we interact with the land." and Korus' aquatic personality believes good fences makes good neighbors.

[noob]

The merfolk and other aquatic humanoids are aware that the land has humans and other humanoid land creatures, but they assume that aquatic humanoids are pale imitations of merfolk.

Those awful merfolks making so that all aquatic humanoids see themselves as pale imitation of merfolks.
Also:

Under the sea, my nine gods and goddesses have slightly different names and slightly different personalities (many are gender swapped not that it matters much.) Alignment is less important under the sea. The main philosophical argument among the sea goddesses is "How should we interact with the land." and Korus' aquatic personality believes good fences makes good neighbors.

does not really makes sense: the land gods busy themselves with the interactions between the land people but the sea gods do not care at all about the interactions between the sea people.
If a god picked people then it is usually to tell them how to live their lives not in order to say "you can do whatever even kill yourselves and each other: I will not care even in the slightest: what matters is that you do x to the land people"(x including "build a wall" for korus)
It is as if the sea gods did not care about the sea people and cared more about the land people.

Unless somehow in the sea everybody is agreeing completely on how to behave with each other, gods included but then it would become a plot point: how did they all get to agree how to behave in life with each other up to the point the only point of contention between them is : "what about the people outside of the sea"?
Is there is some sort of great merfolk sea emperor that conquered the entire sea and then decided to declare that all the aquatic humanoids are pale copies of merfolk (merfolk included in the pale copies of merfolk: they are pale copies of themselves) and that can crush any who disagree or misbehave in his empire?

[ideasmith]

It does not at all: the only way people uses to make a cosmology that is not nonsense that "encourages" balance between good and evil is to make that if evil falls below a threshold then there is more evil stuff that happens and avoiding that "more evil stuff happens" is not balancing good and evil: it is merely trying to prevent the horrible event that happens otherwise by keeping the minimum evil that prevents such thing.
It is because increasing evil is evil so the only way to make it justified is if eviller stuff happens if it is not done ex: one setting where all life ends if there is insufficient evil.(there is multiple stories with exactly that)

There is also cosmologies where the balance between evil and good is an automated thing and where each good action directly causes an evil action of comparable impact and reciprocally but then again it is not something that justifies balancing good and evil because it is already happening automatically due to the rules of the setting.

In one fantasy trilogy I’ve read (it was written by Andrew J. Offutt and Richard K. Lyon), the most powerful forces of good are called the “the fires which shall destroy the earth”, after what they will do if enough of the escape from the even more powerful forces of evil. The authors make side good convincingly good and side evil convincingly evil. If I lived in that universe, I would not want side good to have a conclusive win.

...referencing ad&d while talking about alignment is irrelevant here because we are talking about a nine alignment grid system and not a 3 alignment system....

Both editions of Advanced Dungeons and Dragons used a nine alignment grid system, and neither used a three alignment system. That being the case, why in the world would “talking about a nine alignment grid system and not a 3 alignment system” make AD&D irrelevant?

[noob]

In one fantasy trilogy I’ve read (it was written by Andrew J. Offutt and Richard K. Lyon), the most powerful forces of good are called the “the fires which shall destroy the earth”, after what they will do if enough of the escape from the even more powerful forces of evil. The authors make side good convincingly good and side evil convincingly evil. If I lived in that universe, I would not want side good to have a conclusive win.

Is it really good people if they have "killing all the people" in their to be done list?(unless they only plan to destroy the earth without killing the people living on it and that it is needed for making so that the people are not killed ex: a tyranid infestation situation: you destroy the planet because all the people on it died or evacuated and you do not want the tyranids to use the weight of the planet as their own weight)
I think not.
It is not because their operating protocol starts by doing good things that their intentions are good.
If you do a cosmology with the people that will do evil later fighting the people that do evil now then of course you want to get rid of both sides.

[Vahnavoi]

Is it really good people if they have "killing all the people" in their to be done list?

There is no general case either way in the context of fantasy. When talking about divine actors, especially, it's a pretty common feature of classic myth for a good divine entity to consider destroying the world and all the people in it.

[noob]

There is no general case either way in the context of fantasy. When talking about divine actors, especially, it's a pretty common feature of classic myth for a good divine entity to consider destroying the world and all the people in it.

Greek mythology did not have that and the Norse mythology did not say that the gods had to destroy the people in the world (they had Valhalla and all the mortals that would have fought valiantly in the war against the giants would go to that place afterwards or something like that)
Since it is the two classical mythologies I know can you tell me which classical mythologies does involve the gods destroying the world and all the people in it?
Maybe in that religion about a devouring god that eats all the dead?
The issue is that 99% of the time in classic mythology what the gods do is considered incredibly heretical or evil when done by a mortal and they rarely are said to be good except at points where they are actually doing one action that benefits its followers(ex: helping an army to win) or "in general" (due to the rule of "the mighty is right until it is killing me personally").

[Vahnavoi]

Greek mythology did not have that and the Norse mythology did not say that the gods had to destroy the people in the world (they had Valhalla and all the mortals that would have fought valiantly in the war against the giants would go to that place afterwards or something like that)
Since it is the two classical mythologies I know can you tell me which classical mythologies does involve the gods destroying the world and all the people in it?

Most obvious set of examples.

Maybe in that religion about a devouring god that eats all the dead?

Ironically one of the examples I do not recognize nor recall.

The issue is that 99% of the time in classic mythology what the gods do is considered incredibly heretical or evil when done by a mortal and they rarely are said to be good except at points where they are actually doing one action that benefits its followers(ex: helping an army to win) or "in general" (due to the rule of "the mighty is right until it is killing me personally").

See, that's another thing for where there is no general case in fantasy: whether gods are meant to play by the same rules as mortals varies. Sometimes, the very thing that makes the act heretical or evil for mortals is trespassing on the domain of gods, ie. only divine beings have the license (for whatever reason) to do these things.

For the obvious roleplaying game analogue, it's typical for games that only one person, such as a game master, is allowed to play antagonists, because someone playing an antagonist is necessary for conflict to happen in a game. For a player other than the designated person, playing an antagonist constitutes a breach of game rules and is grounds for being penalized.