Teaching new tricks to old gods

[Fri]

Ha ha.

That spoiler is unexpected, but worth it.

[Pronounceable]

^^ I have some more ideas left but they're either pretty lame or don't have fresh divine material. I feel like a darned comic book writer now, getting a bunch of ideas with existing characters and it basically amounts to mashing up my toys against each other while making funny noises. Which should be done by the DMs I gave these toys to, not me in this thread.

Lendor is the primordial god of time and prophecy and boredom and he's fittingly boring. The story of Bhaal's attempt to destroy Erythnul for his buddy Tempus has no new characters in it. Listing the exact fathers of titan gods would be treading water. The other few ideas I got that's better than these examples also rehash a lot of old material. I try to come up with new stuff but, since there's so much previous stuff, the new stuff has no course but to become related to old stuff (like Lathander, who simply needs to tie into Pelor vs Sune we got going on Material).

While I'm not gonna say we're done, we're more or less done. I still have ideas and might post more deities (such as Eldath), but this thread has now officially entered overtime.

[Pronounceable]

Every time I complain about running out of ideas, I notice a few holes that can be filled. It's like magic.


OBAD-HAI (demigod), Triune Prince, Lord of Depths and Darkness, Hruggek the Decapitator, Shalm’s Player, Three Face, King of Life and Death, False Idol
Domains: cycles, seasons, change, goblinoids, nature, death, birth

Spoiler

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Feywild is the birthplace of many strange creatures but none of them are as odd as the goblinoids. In fact, they’re so unlike all the other fey, most mortals don’t even realize their true nature, thinking them just one of the many wild and/or nasty species of Material Plane that worships evil deities like orcs, gnolls or ogres. But just like all fey beings, goblinoids are immortals of Feywild nursing an obsessive fascination with something of mortals: death, and birth to a lesser extent. They enjoy getting killed as much as they enjoy killing, and they’ve found that antagonizing mortals like other savage species is the best way of getting what they like. Unlike other fey beings, goblinoids aren’t reborn in Feywild when they’re killed, they were banished shortly after Feywild was completed. Instead they live on worlds of Material Plane as a blight upon mortals, happy to kill and die violently and continuously. They can’t be bothered with all that needing sex to reproduce crap either, sex is for those pansy nymphs over in Feywild (and mortals). The soul of a killed goblinoid moves on to a random goblinoid on a random world, impregnating it and coming back to life in a matter of weeks, without any sort of reproductive activities required on the live goblinoids’ part. They are always completely sentient and enjoy being born just as much as they enjoy getting killed (they don’t enjoy either side of pregnancy however and none of them have anything resembling familial feelings). It doesn’t take more than a few days after birth for a goblinoid to complete its physical growth and start looking for ways to kill and die again. It’s the extreme frequency of seeing pregnant goblinoids (usually attacking among the horde with no care for their safety by either themselves or their fellows) that fool mortals into thinking these psychopathic fey are also mortal, though it does baffle people when a lone, imprisoned goblinoid in isolation gets pregnant and gives birth. But learned sages and crafty wizards on numerous worlds have found ways of tracking their spirits and discovered the so called Goblinoid Cycle. Dead goblins impregnate live hobgoblins to come back, souls of killed hobgoblins enter bugbear hosts for rebirth, and bugbears inhabit goblins postmortem in an endless cycle of death and birth. Then they inflict death and destruction upon mortals for fun and games. The only cure to goblinoid blight upon a mortal world is complete genocide, as even a single goblinoid in hiding will live forever and eventually return its vicious race in force. The worst thing about goblinoids is that even this isn't a solution, killing them all off on your world only means you unleashed this plague on another world.

The ruler of all goblinoids is a being just as strange and terrible as his subjects, complete with his own cycle of endless reincarnation. Obad-hai is born at the spring equinox from a goblin, grows into a hobgoblin with plantlike features (thus proving he’s no ordinary goblinoid) and forces its subjects on that world to cease harassing mortals and contemplate the beauty of nature and celebrate the joy of spring with shalm music, then is inevitably killed in a few months by one of his annoyed subjects anxious to go back to killing and dying. Hruggek the Decapitator is a monstrously big bugbear, born on the midsummer day from a hobgoblin on a different world, pushing his followers into a frenzied campaign of bloodshed against everything else and always dies on the frontlines before the winter comes. Lord of Depths and Darkness is a coal black giant goblin with burning eyes, born of a bugbear on the winter solstice to teach his subjects the arts of ambush and assassination, urging them to terrorize and slaughter mortals and each other alike under the cover of darkness and cold, then invariably falls prey to a cunning assassination from one of the fastest learners before spring arrives. No matter which form their lord arrived in, goblinoids of a world are heartened and redouble their efforts at harming mortals in the following years.

It’s unknown how Obad-hai acquired divinity after his banishment at the hands of his archfey siblings, but he and his subjects plagued Material Plane ever since they were kicked out of Feywild for their unacceptably psychopathic (even for fey) behavior. It’s said his sister discovered the secret and followed in his footsteps to ascend as the goddess of winter but that seems unlikely, as Obad-hai isn’t nearly as strong as Queen of Air and Darkness and his occasional attempts to return to Feywild are easily blocked by her or Titania, Lady of Waves and Flames.

Obad-hai is also the only one of his siblings who has anything resembling a regular relationship with Deadbeat Grandfather, which consists of trying to subvert his few worshippers under the guise of a humanoid deity of spring and renewal on the worlds where goblinoids have been completely eradicated. While he rarely succeeds on noticeable scales, he always pushes the mortals that fall under his sway into violence and bloodshed, doing no favors to the image of Silvanus worshippers as savage beasts barely distinguishable from animals. He takes a special delight in urging worshippers of Silvanus to slaughter peaceful followers of Chauntea, causing a lot of headache for “both” as the two churches scramble to fix the relations between their flocks. As with Frostmaiden, Silvanus feels responsible for Triune Prince’s actions and only works to contain his influence instead of imprisoning or destroying him like he easily could.

As the god of goblinoids, pretty much every deity worshipped by humanoids of Material Plane are Obad-hai’s enemies. Like his subjects, he enjoys getting killed and it never really stops him for long. Even Nerull’s numerous attempts to permanently destroy him has never worked, he returns to plague three mortal worlds every year without exception. In fact, getting killed seems to only increase his power. Every year’s Decapitator is stronger and every year’s Lord of Depths and Darkness is sneakier than the previous one, it’s clear for those paying attention that Obad-hai’s divine power is slowly approaching the threshold of a lesser god. This doesn’t cause much concern to other gods because unlike his stronger sister, he has no influence whatsoever outside of Material Plane. There’ll be plenty of time to deal with him before he grows into anything approaching Auril's threat judging by the time it took him to reach this level of power and he has no allies to support him. Though the apparent impossibility of stopping him as a mere demigod has the more insightful (or paranoid) beings worried about what he might grow into as his divinity increases.

Goblinoids never waste any time worshipping Obad-hai, they instead harass mortals so they can get killed and born faster. The small cults he fosters on worlds that lack goblinoids are dangerous but they never amount to much before either exploding in a flurry of small scale death and mayhem or are discovered and quashed by Silvanus or Chauntea (or more rarely Olidammara). Praying to Obad-hai is mostly useless, for he can’t hear from goblinoids not on the world he’s currently plaguing, but he is capable of answering prayers of local goblinoids and does it as much as he's able. The one good thing for mortals that comes out of Obad-hai’s manifestation on a world is that Auril’s much more terrifying attacks never happen to a mortal world dealing with him, she even stops and retreats swiftly if any form of Obad-hai is born on one of her targets. Scholars speculate this is some sort of sibling cooperation but the real reason is simply spite, Auril knows her brother and his flunkies would enjoy getting destroyed by her armies and withdraws to prevent him getting his jollies. She still hates him (and goblinoids) as much as the day he got banished from Feywild and is loath to attack any world that has high goblinoid populations.

When he’s masquerading as a deity for mortals, Obad-hai usually appears to be a self sacrificing revolutionary. He appeals to discontent about status quo and promises change and rebirth, preaches of returning to good old days or moving forwards into a glorious new future, whatever it takes to convince mortals to join his cults. He picks charismatic and unscrupulous patsies to lead his cults while he’s busy manifesting in a goblinoid form, letting such mortals corrupt themselves with worldly power over their fellows. Knowing well how dumb and mad mortals can get with lust and greed, he encourages being wild and indulging in passions. Once ensnared, his cultists are pushed towards more and more extreme measures until they either bring catastrophe upon their world or are (very much more likely) discovered and destroyed themselves. Either result is fine for Obad-hai, death is death.

I really, really, really hate Maglubiyet. It's not just a dumb****ed name like Mask. It's straight up hypocritical and (fictional) racist. If calling the racial deity of a race literally defeat isn't the highest order of fictional prejudice, I dunno what is. DnD always has this racism against ugly critters and we all know to just roll with it, but it's usually less in your face than ****ing Maglubiyet. Redcloak is %101 correct, **** classical DnD. So I said screw this and has been avoiding goblins in this thread until recently.

I've also always wanted there to be important differences between various badguy races to justify their existence as seperate species of DnD, and was planning to have goblinoids be warrior fungal infection (stolen straight out of Warhammer) and orcs the regular mammal humanoid badguy race. And having eliminated gobs for this thread, I went for the next one, hobs. Hobs are cool.

Then I found their god with his unwieldily long name and a hypen (capital offense), so that was also out. Which was leaving me with Hruggek, the only DnD goblinoid deity that didn't suck. But lo and behold: one of Maglubiyet's names is "Lord of Depths and Darkness". It's so incredibly similar to another name, yet there's no "canonical" connection whatsoever (just like the Revenancer). Therefore I decided to make one.

Cue this. Also cue the second tripartite god (now I want a third for completing the triple trifecta). I like this, this is good and cool, one of the best deities on this thread, I don't even need to be told that. It's a pulpy badguy deity for irredeemable badguys. Still being racist towards goblins of course, it wouldn't really be DnD without being fictionally racist to ugly sentient beings and I'm trying to be authentically DnD in this thread. But why drag Obad-hai into this, you ask? It's because death and rebirth is his thing. He fits and is a short name with a hypen, also not goddamn Maglubiyet.

[Fri]

It's a cool idea and at once a nice subversion of goblinoid oppression and a nice fantasy take of warhammer-style fungal orc infestation.

[Beneath]

I like these goblins.

So how did their (and Obad-hai's) exile from the Feywild happen?

It does seem kinda weird to rewrite Obad-hai as the goblin god, but I see your reasoning, and the bit about him being mistaken for Sylvanus a lot is good (given that they're the same archetype)

I like my goblins a little more flexible than being fixed into three types (given the sand goblins in Sandstorm, Eberron's weird goblins, Blues from the psi books, and so on), plus I have my own goblin lore (trolls are a kind of overgrown goblin, hobgoblins are half-human, things like that), but getting rid of the three-ness and the specific cycle of goblin rebirth fixes that.

Actually though fitting Blues (or misfitting them, as it were) into this scheme as it is could be interesting. There's obviously a different god putting influence on them, some power not of the feywild here.

Also the idea that goblin reproduction is based on reincarnation of available goblin spirits rather than anything else suggests that there might be magic that the kind of evil wizards who employ goblin minions can use that would let them rapidly breed a single goblin into an army (by attracting goblin spirits), essentially rapidly speeding up the exponential growth of an isolated goblin population at the expense of goblin populations that don't have an evil wizard. This ends up being sort of erfworld-y. Also goblins being, far from the cowards they are in traditional D&D, death-maniacs who are almost as suicidal as they are homicidal (as long as they can make their death interesting) leads to ideas about Warcraft-style goblin sappers.

[Pronounceable]

So how did their (and Obad-hai's) exile from the Feywild happen?

I dunno. Didn't seem very important. Probably Auril, Titania and Oberon (and any other archfey you wanna invent) didn't like goblinoids killing their subjects so much.

Also, back when I wanted WH40K orks as my goblinoid specie, trolls were gonna be their next category up after outgrowing bugbearhood. So you're on to something there. Maybe I should have a tinfoil hat to protect my brain from you...
Also also, the evil wizard idea is great.

Blues

While I don't actually know anything about blue goblins, I'm gonna assume they're the psionic variant. For our thread here, that'd mean Tiamat's godspawn. So you're looking mainly at Pisaethces or Ilsensine. Both can work. Aboleths and their firstborn godspawn are absolute masters of the mind, practicising from even before Abbathor-Laduguer were a thing, and aboleths are also a limited supply of reincarnating souls. Whereas Ilsensine's been looking to increase its power and influence ever since Duerra/duergar started pwning its tentacles and is also big on mad science and experiments. Alternately, Demogorgon; psionic fey are the exact sort of weird thing powers that be pay him to create, but their patron would've been whoever paid for their creation.

Speaking of Tiamat,


ELDATH (intermediate goddess), Goddess of Singing Waters, Lady Serenity, Queen of the Lake, Mother Guardian in the Night, Riversinger, Princess of Dreams, Sleeping Beauty
Domains: peace, quiet, sleep, dreams, lakes, rivers, protection

Spoiler

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Eldath is one of the sweetest and most peaceful goddesses around, beloved by mortals and deities alike, and Pelor’s enduring hatred and endless oppression of her and her followers is always baffling in its complete dissonance from the regular image he works so hard to cultivate. Everyone chalks that up to his anger at being outed for his indiscretion, as it’s extremely obvious to all who beheld Eldath that she’s the offspring of Pelor and Umberlee. However, as in many cases, the looks are deceiving.

In unimaginably ancient times, after he finished reshaping the worlds of Material into spheres and charged Olidammara to recollect all the air he lazily let flow into empty space instead of wrapping tightly around worlds, Pelor saw that there was still no sign of his daughter. He needed water for the worlds, mortal life wasn’t gonna happen on barren rocks, but Umberlee had yet to bring a single drop from Elemental Plane of Water. And since his industrious son had left in a huff and his lazy son was busy fixing his own screwup, Pelor had to go get water and look for his gentle daughter himself. So he went into Water and saw it full of life; horrifying, monstrous life of nightmarish abominations. Pelor swore to never make any creature this disgusting as he scoured the plane, looking for signs of his daughter. When he found the trail was leading towards the dark depths, he was worried. When Tiamat suddenly rose above him in all her might, Pelor saw his fears were justified. Umberlee, polite and mild mannered as she was, had gone to ask Tiamat’s permission to take some water. And Tiamat had devoured her, as she’d said she’d do to anything of her brothers’ make that comes to bother her.

While Pelor was the youngest and weakest among his primordial siblings, he could sense Umberlee inside Tiamat’s stomach as she was slowly and horrifying being digested. Umberlee’s mind was already broken from pain and her form was about to give as well. So Pelor did the only thing he knew would work on his sister, he suddenly attacked. Tiamat, being the strongest and knowing Pelor to be too weak to ever stand up to her, was completely unprepared as Pelor sliced her massive sea snake form in half and tore open her stomach. Her surprise lasted only a moment but it was enough for Pelor to pull Umberlee out and flee. Tiamat was furious (it had actually hurt). She gave chase, focusing her will to block all exits and forms of escape Pelor could use to leave Water. Pelor was using his own power on the half digested Umberlee, trying to lessen her pain and mend her wounds while trying to run from Tiamat. It wasn’t gonna work; keeping away from Tiamat was using up too much of his power, not leaving enough to help Umberlee who was still being dissolved by blood of Tiamat splattered over her form. So, in desperation, Pelor opened up a passage to Plane of Negative Energy. Tiamat hadn’t been blocking that route, she didn’t expect Pelor to be reckless enough to try that, but that bit of time Pelor spent not running away was enough for her to catch up. Just as Pelor was leaving Water, Tiamat’s jaws caught him right in the crotch, castrating him forever. Pelor has been crippled ever since, his universal creation ability is severely damaged, preventing him from creating more deities or new matter from nothing. This weakness, combined with his inability to save Umberlee’s mind (and the incurable horrible pain of his wound he’s since learned to hide) underlies Pelor’s every action, fueling an uncommon set of daddy issues. While it’s known that he was wounded by Tiamat in some ancient struggle, the actual events or the extent of his disability is unknown to all (except Umberlee, who’s kinda hazy about the details).

Pelor spent a long time hiding out in Negative Energy, focusing all of his power on fixing Umberlee’s mind and body, ignoring his own painful wound. He managed to fix Umberlee’s form and restored her strength but Tiamat’s blood had long seeped into her essence, his power kept failing to untwist her mind. In hindsight, he should’ve known better than to try curing insanity while sitting in the Allmother’s lap, but he was in a hurry and also didn’t want his wound and weakness be witnessed. When he finally admitted defeat, it was too late to heal himself too. So he returned to Material Plane with a violently insane Umberlee, both having paid a heavy price for approaching Tiamat (as she’d said would happen).

But Mother of All Abominations wasn’t done. Having partly devoured divine essences of both Pelor and his daughter, Tiamat could fashion a new deity that would be a combination of them. So she created Eldath, the sweet goddess of sweet waters (who was almost a spitting image of old Umberlee), taking particular care to not let her be anything like Tiamat’s usual (nightmarish) handiwork. Not only would this be rubbing Pelor’s disability in his face and reminding Umberlee of her lost sanity, it would also make it look like Pelor had taken advantage of his maddened daughter to have an affair during their suspiciously long absence from Material Plane. Tiamat even went so far as to create a special sea monster to hide newborn Eldath inside, planting it on an ocean where Umberlee would eat it to complete the illusion of Umberlee giving birth to Eldath. The birth was a traumatic event, Tiamat had made certain Umberlee would suffer and Pelor was shocked and disgusted upon seeing the newborn goddess featuring his own essence. He immediately knew it was Tiamat’s work and promptly put Eldath to sleep, then abandoned her in the vast emptiness of Material space. He couldn’t bring himself to see Eldath hurt, she’s far too similar to what his daughter used to be, but was hoping she’d die by herself off in space, out of sight and out of mind.

Eldath, having awoken much later on a world populated by mortals, has no idea about her own origins and assumes herself to be one of the many goddesses born of mortal belief. She doesn’t like to believe in the rumors, preferring to think well of anyone, but the monstrous Umberlee’s seeming fear of her and Pelor’s relentless hatred sometimes makes her doubt. She doesn’t realize seeing her is one of the very few things that can still cause pain to Umberlee and Sun Father only remembers failure and agony when looking at her, so Eldath thinks her lot in life is to be unreasonably oppressed. She takes it in stride, for Eldath is a resilient and brave goddess.

Queen of the Lake has a natural affinity and power over all bodies of sweet water; rivers, lakes and waterfalls are all under her protection. Her personality led her to embrace and take over the domains of peace and quiet, leading her to become the patron of sleep and guardian of sleepers as well. And once she had sleep, it wasn’t long before she got dreams too. The rapid rise of her strength and influence was baffling to most and especially displeased Pelor. While she’s not aware herself, Eldath’s ability to claim so many domains and swiftly rise in power, then suddenly halt in strength comes from Tiamat’s hand; it’s the exact same pattern seen on the nightmarish deities of Water’s abominations like Sekolah or Blipdoolpoolp.

As a result, Lady Serenity has very disparate interests and many worshippers of entirely different types. Lovers of nature pay homage to her, so do prophets and mediums, or artists looking for inspiration from dreams, or lakeshore dwellers and river traders, or stressed city folks looking for some rest, or parents who just want their damn kids to go the **** to sleep. Hidden temples to Eldath can be found virtually anywhere and no two are exactly alike, her clerics are also an entirely too varied bunch but are almost always good natured. What they all do have in common is hatred from Pelor, whose clerics like to paint Eldathyns as anything from lazy layabouts to rabid treehuggers to demonize them. Nobody really buys it, even some Pelorites themselves, but it keeps getting repeated over and over.

Except for Pelor, the Sleeping Beauty is regarded well and lacks in enemies. Eldath has an aversion to saltwater so keeps her influence away from seas and shores, which keeps her worshippers mostly safe from Umberlants and Talassans, not to mention the horrors from Water. The Seldarine all love her and Corellon uses every opportunity to speak up against Pelor’s douchebaggery regarding her. Deities of Material Plane, especially the more politically minded ones (aka Sune), consider her to be a stellar example of primordial oppression and a rallying flag to unite around. Gruumsh sees her as a weakling but prefers not to bother her (the similarities between her and Water’s abominations aren’t lost on him, as he’s one of the most observant beings of the planes despite appearances). Silvanus and Olidammara, both buying into those rumors of her origins, pity her and might sometimes help her out to bother Pelor. But Eldath and her followers are on best terms with, of all the deities, Loviatar. Loviatar sees a kindred spirit in her, one who understands the strength of weakness and value of bravery in the face of oppression. Most unexpected of all however, is the great god of war Tempus and his persistent courting. Despite all expectations to the contrary, Tempus sees the brief periods of peace and quiet between wars as a worthy prize and thinks sleep and rest are precious, so he sees Lady Serenity herself as a worthy prize to be acquired too. Eldath isn’t at all pleased by this but, being a pacifist, so far hasn’t found a way to get rid of his annoying advances.

But while everyone believes the Bitch Queen is inexplicably afraid of Eldath and would never have anything to do with her, she’s covertly keeping an her eye on her and might just decide to solve Eldath’s little problem with her usual subtlety. Chances are good that, like the last time someone tried to mess with Tempus, nobody will be happy by the end of it (except maybe the Allmother of course, and it’s been very long since Umberlee last furthered her cause).

You know, when compared to actual omnivillains of the multiverse, Corellon really isn't that bad of a guy. Pelor too. I also wanted Pelor to be more sympathetic, he is supposed to be a good guy after all.

However, this is what I meant by mashing my toys together and making pew pew noises. Eldath is a guest star in her own entry, I'm much more focused on worldbuilding with my previous stuff than making her a legit, standalone deity for DM consumption. She fared better than H bros tho, I'll give myself that.

[Beneath]

re:Blues, now I want to know more about Demogorgon. I could see them being, like, Demogorgon's influence on behalf of Ilsensine, or perhaps the result of Illithid meddling directly on goblin spirits (maybe they're what a bugbear who has been eaten by a mind flayer reincarnates as)

Eldath's story is so sad. I like making her goddess of dreams though. Very very interesting.

(as for Pelor being supposedly good, one, having incorruptible bastions of good is boring, and two, the burning hate heresy is probably my favorite interpretation that doesn't involve this level of reworking)

[Fable Wright]

I probably should go back and read some of the entries that I've skipped, because Pelor and Tiamat continue to be extremely interesting characters, but there's no real place where their main story is collected and I want more.

[Pronounceable]

I could see them being, like, Demogorgon's influence on behalf of Ilsensine

It pretty much writes itself. Ilsensine (once cloven, twice shy) paid Demogorgon to make it some new worshippers, untracable ones that duergar wouldn't connect to it. These so called blues are probably goblinoid spirits DoubleD somehow impregnated illithid tadpoles with [insert bodyhorror here].
There isn't much to know about old Monkeyfaces themself though; as in the entry, he's a psycho scientist for hire and loves making things cry.

Eldath's story is so sad. I like making her goddess of dreams though.

Yeah, peace and quiet kinda leads right up to sleep. I'm surprised they didn't go there back in the day, FR (and DnD) is seriously lacking in sleepy-dreamy gods.

I probably should go back and read some of the entries that I've skipped

It all kinda builds up on itself. I wouldn't recommend skipping things. Then again, there's a ****load of stuff to read, it's not ununderstandable.
Interesting dudes not being altogether in a single entry is also a feature (see: Gruumsh and Corey). Gotta keep baiting the audience.


e: vvv Well, Amaunator, Garagos, Boccob, Loviatar, Erathis, Tempus, Aoskar, Yondalla, Gruumsh and Mystra are all mortal spawned (or at least appeared after Mechanus). But yeah, the true number of gods spawned purely by mortal belief is lower than it appears.

e2: vvv But if the psigoblins are just random mutants among regulars and you want some secret mastermind covertly feeding off of psionics (similar to Mystra) or playing sims on goblinoids, Pisaethces is your abomination. Brainpickle is more straightforward and needs moar powah to restore itself, whereas Blood Queen is into psionic hyperscience and dominated patsies. Both could've contracted DoubleD to fuse goblinoid souls with their psionic followers, just pick which flavor you like your tentacles.

[Beneath]

I could see that. I don't know if "worship" is the proper connection between Blues and Ilsensine though, but it could draw power from their existence in a way other deities draw power from their worshippers. There is probably then a fixed number of Blues; when one dies it reincarnates, something of a parasite on the goblin reincarnation cycle, and their interests are more aligned with Ilsensine's than Obad-hai's (the default lore for Blues is that they're random mutants in goblin societies and tend to either be outcasts or leaders, with no in-between; I think this hews to that closely enough to be recognizable with a hint of multi-planar conspiracy thrown in).

It occurs to me that supposedly a lot of deities sprung up from mortal belief, but aside from Nerull and Sune there aren't any mentioned that actually sprung up full-blown like Eldath thinks she did (there are a bunch of ascended mortals, like Brandobaris and Arvoreen, but mortal belief seems to only rarely create a deity full-formed)

Also yes about the lack of dream gods. Pathfinder has one but I can't think of others; Eberron has a plane of dream that's ruled by non-theistic philosophies (the Dreaming Dark and the Path of Light). Dream is potentially a really powerful portfolio, too, if the cosmology has a Plane of Dreams, or if the whole thing is Shar's dream.

[Fri]

To be honest, I don't like pelor the conquering sun or whatever that thing is called, though not for any fault of it. It's just nowadays (nowadays count from when that theory was first mentioned), theory where good guy x is actually evil but hiding it so passe. Kitschy. Cliche. Overdone. Almost as passe as theory where "the main character of x series is actually dying and the whole series is his dying dream." Only almost.

[Max_Killjoy]

To be honest, I don't like pelor the conquering sun or whatever that thing is called, though not for any fault of it. It's just nowadays (nowadays count from when that theory was first mentioned), theory where good guy x is actually evil but hiding it so passe. Kitschy. Cliche. Overdone. Almost as passe as theory where "the main character of x series is actually dying and the whole series is his dying dream." Only almost.

These read, to me, more like most of the gods are vain, petty, self-absorbed jerks, in the vein of Greek myths.

[Fri]

These read, to me, more like most of the gods are vain, petty, self-absorbed jerks, in the vein of Greek myths.

Yes, these are nice.

I'm talking specifically about the Pelor the Burning Hate meme.

[Pronounceable]

You know, folks, I been kinda working on a sort of chronology for the stuff that's been happening in these entries. I just finished it and, looking at it now, I see a massive, flavorless and entirely boring shopping list (7 pages long on Word).

But assuming I didn't forget something, it has all the stuff I've written in these posts (and some I haven't) and is mostly in order. I'm not gonna post the list, for it's incredibly lame. But I am gonna post the list of spaces of the list, the unwritten bits that stick out, the places where I can do more deity stuff with. Maybe y'all can tell me it's time to end instead. So here they are:


-Abominable godspawn: Only stuff we got about these guys was in Blipdo and it was obviously focused on frogmonsters. There's like half a dozen species of abominations to play with in Water, I could certainly whip up some entry talking about kraken superiority driving mindflayers and beholders to flee to underdarks or what Demon Prince Dagon's up to in there. But it's like underwater combat rules: sure I can make stuff up, but what's the point? Virtually nobody runs underwater campaigns and the only pertinent info about the aberration species for the average DnD player is their hp/ac.

-Lower Planes: Moradin's war on chaotic evil might've stopped but stuff keeps going down there. Problem is, deities don't really play a role in all the crap daemons have been up to since the dawn of time or domestic politics among demons/devils. I can still squeeze some fiendish deity in, there's at least a couple guys I can think of.

-Air/Earth/Fire: Thanks to Tiamat, Elemental Plane of Water is pretty well understood in this thread. Or at least I assume I made it well understandable with all incidental info. Meanwhile, other 3 elements are empty. While I have no ideas right now, I could maybe make some stuff out of genies and elemental princes and whatnot.

-Upper Planes: They're almost always boring. It's pretty hard to do anything with celestials when they're not fighting baddies below. Not to mention, exemplars of all Outer Planes usually keep to themselves and don't meddle much with gods and mortals.

-Underdark: Svirfneblin? Gesundheit! Drow? Never heard of it.

-Boccob's Irregulars: Since they were left so generic and vague, there's space to fill out.

-"Monstrous" humanoids: There's plenty of nonhumanoid species, except I don't really want them or their ultraspecialized gods. Material is for humans and variants; centaurs and harpies and whatever other man-beast hybrids are clearly fey creatures (or commissioned to DoubleD), whereas the three billion and twelve reptilian species are obviously Tiamat's handiwork. Nevertheless, it's still a possible direction to go.

-Seldarine: It occured to me that we've never seen a writeup of an actual, legit Seldarine so far. It's always been all about Douchenozzle nozzling it up. Maybe one of them without any douchebaggage would be nice.

-Some DnD deity that I missed or ignored in my list: There's always the chance that I simply missed something good. The problem with those is that I've missed it. If I knew what it was, it wouldn't be missing.

-Lady of Pain: Admittedly, I got this a while ago. It's less a deity writeup, more a sorta last campaign idea, the massive final epic adventure you quit DnD with kinda of thing. Defining the Lady is also a blasphemy among DnD circles, I'd probably have to turn in my badge and dice after posting it. Been saving it for the actual end of the thread and, assuming it's good enough, we'll be ending with a bang. It might be that time.


So there's the options I can see for myself. Seems kinda a lot. Then again, a good artist is the one that knows when to stop. I'm likely not a good artist but it almost feels like I'm mostly there.

[Beneath]

Nobody runs underwater games only because the underwater rules are too complicated for play and also because "you drown" is often enough. A system-neutral-ish setting can include underwater stuff and maybe it'll see play in a game like Dungeon World or something similar where the underwater rules don't suck.

I definitely like the harpies-are-fey thing; I've been using them for the offspring of a hag and an aaracokra in one of my campaigns (tho the aaracokra hasn't been revealed yet and was probably eaten). Presumably there are other ways for them to exist, all of which involve some kind of evil fey magic (in part because "hag" isn't a species here, but a classification of a kind of power one can have. an evil fey princess might become a hag, but so might a mortal sorceress who meddles too much in evil fey powers. and hagness can be inherited too).

Don't sell yourself short; the upper planes are more interesting in this setup, precisely because they're not the habitat of the omnibenevolent gods, but rather the slightly-less-dickish gods/the less-likely-to-come-over-uninvited-to-ruin-your-day gods.

I'm not sure what a Seldarine entry that isn't about Correlon being Correlon would look like, which is probably reason enough to try to write one (Sehanine, maybe?)

I'd go for Pisaethces as "patron" of the Blues, but I don't know it that well and I'm a bit surprised that the Aboleths even have a god in canon; that doesn't seem like their style (then again, it's not the illithids' style either but Ilsensine doesn't seem to mind)

Oh, what about the Flumph god? Why did Tiamat make such a thing?

Also, you have Gruumsh on your list of possible mortal-belief gods but he's a primordial son of Selune and Shar like Pelor and Correlon (him being younger than Mechanus is interesting though). Tempus, Amaunator, Aoskar, Oghcob, and possibly Mystra can all go on the list with Nerull and Sune though, and everyone can think Yondalla's there too (and Chauntea).

[Fable Wright]

-"Monstrous" humanoids: There's plenty of nonhumanoid species, except I don't really want them or their ultraspecialized gods. Material is for humans and variants; centaurs and harpies and whatever other man-beast hybrids are clearly fey creatures (or commissioned to DoubleD), whereas the three billion and twelve reptilian species are obviously Tiamat's handiwork. Nevertheless, it's still a possible direction to go.

I would love this, but you're right in that most pantheons for them are... well, overly-specific.

If I could make a request, it would be to add the Sovereign Host (or more importantly, the Dark Six) to your pantheon. Six gods and goddesses with myths of their own, commonly believed in by humanoids and monsters alike, with some being favored by specific races. Medusae, Harpies, and some Trolls favor Aureon's Shadow, as both humans and monsters alike believe that it gave the monsters their fell powers that humans can't replicate. Kobolds and savage goblins favor the Mockery, as the patron of dishonorable combat—after all, in a world filled with larger predators, they cannot fight fair and expect to survive.

Of course, it might just be that the Shadow is an alias of Demogorgon, the Devourer is an alias of Tiamat, and so on and so forth until it's revealed that all fifteen deities of the Sovereign Host and Dark Six are just a sham put together by the Traveler just to see what would happen if a godless planet started worshiping make-believe gods. But... I dunno, I'd like to see the patron deities of the monster nation of Droaam get more love than just a few small blurbs in a barely-referenced setting book.

[Beneath]

I was under the impression that the Eberron gods were distant enough that you couldn't really be sure what their will was for any given thing, that mortals/their churches were more important than the actual gods, which somewhat conflicts with this setting's cosmos of active squabbling gods.

[GungHo]

-Abominable godspawn: Only stuff we got about these guys was in Blipdo and it was obviously focused on frogmonsters. There's like half a dozen species of abominations to play with in Water, I could certainly whip up some entry talking about kraken superiority driving mindflayers and beholders to flee to underdarks or what Demon Prince Dagon's up to in there. But it's like underwater combat rules: sure I can make stuff up, but what's the point? Virtually nobody runs underwater campaigns and the only pertinent info about the aberration species for the average DnD player is their hp/ac.

So, no one was scared of the Kraken (either the giant cephalopod or the four armed giant thing from Clash of the Titans) until it actually came out of the water and tearing up a coastal town. I would be less concerned with abominations of the deep sea that no one is likely to interact with and I'd focus on the things that are likely to come to surface to raid or enact some sort of vengeance (possibly at the behest of another deity).

Same thing goes for underdark, other planes (inner or outer). You don't really need to write about Elminster's underwear, because it's very unlikely that no one is ever going to see his underwear. However, if someone says "I go under Elminster's robe to look at his underwear", make it hurt.

[Fable Wright]

I was under the impression that the Eberron gods were distant enough that you couldn't really be sure what their will was for any given thing, that mortals/their churches were more important than the actual gods, which somewhat conflicts with this setting's cosmos of active squabbling gods.

That is, in fact, true.

The Host is weird, however, in that they have things like myths and legends about the various members of the Host and the Dark Six, even if they can't verify that such things ever happened. Kinda like real-life mythology, bizarrely enough. Stories about how Aureon, as the embodiment of all magic, cut himself in twain so that he wouldn't be tainted by the darker side of magic; in doing so, he created his Shadow. Stories about the birth of the Fury and Kol Korran, and likely stories about artifacts left by Onatar or the Fury, and of heroic mortals who dealt with the Sovereigns on equal terms.

It's just that no one can call the deities today and ask them to verify or refute these claims.

[Pronounceable]

If I could make a request, it would be to add the Sovereign Host (or more importantly, the Dark Six) to your pantheon.

Unfortunately we can't really do that. I could use the names and domains to create a pantheon but what makes Eberron faiths cool is the fact that they're unknown and possibly completely fake. None of our guys here roll that way. Also most of Eberronians are basically the usual suspects or their mixes (Arawai and Boldrei are both Chauntea, Aureon is Boccob, Dol Arrah is Pelor/Heironeous, Devourer is Umberlee [complete with Fury=Talos as her violently conceived child from a sibling], Mockery is Bhaal/Erythnul, Shadow/Aureon thing is a Shar/Selune thing, etc). You can simply assimilate the legends and stories about SH and map them on their equivalents here though, that'd work. But the point of Eberron faiths would be lost when transported to a regular DnD universe.

I'd go for Pisaethces as "patron" of the Blues, but I don't know it that well and I'm a bit surprised that the Aboleths even have a god in canon

Neither do I, to be honest. I just know aboleths are traditionally the very first sentient beings on any DnD universe and they're into dominated mutant slaves, then wing the rest. Or Ilsensine, if it comes to that. I knew what mindflayers are, I knew their god is a giant tentacly brain named Ilsensine, then made stuff up. If you want psigoblins tied to an abomination god, pick which color you like tentacles in (purple for Ilsensine, blue-green for Pisaethces).


Anyway. We got incoming.


RAVANNA (lesser deity), Maharaja of Rakshasa, Paper Tiger, Striped Jester, Lord of Misrule
Domains: unity, obedience, protection, law, evil, trickery

Spoiler

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Of all the fiendish exemplar races of Lower Planes, none has been as heavily oppressed as the rakshasa of Acheron. Even when daemons of Gehenna conquered Hades and subjugated the native succubi aka incubi aka hags aka erinyes (all of which are transparently the same friggin DnD creature), they weren’t as thoroughly crushed as the rakshasa. The tiger headed fiends had become the least influential exemplars of all Lower Planes as their plane turned into the open buffet of the gods, taken over piece by piece by deities of evil and law. Neighboring devils may be weak among exemplars, but they’re organized, efficient, ruthless and when it comes to protecting their turf, selfless. Whereas Acheron’s rakshasa were powerful, arrogant, lazy and treacherous, fond of conspiring and backstabbing their fellows purely for the joy of inflicting pain and humiliation. They knew that no other fiends were a match for them except demodands (who never leave their prison plane anyway), so assumed they had nothing to fear from the outside.

So it was an education to them when the great orc god Gruumsh invaded, crushing individual fiefdoms, baronies and emirates of rakshasa rajas like insects. Gruumsh broke the entire plane in half and carved the realm of Nishrek out of Acheron, transforming it into his private playground; it may not be pretty but is by far the largest of all divine realms in the multiverse. The rakshasa had lost almost half of their plane but certainly hadn’t learned their lesson, for they let the ancient god Laduguer conquer a large part of their plane by subverting and taking over domains of many rakshasa rajas one by one. Lord Determinant toppled many rajas and enslaved all the rakshasa who couldn’t escape his grasp, leaving the rest of them squeezed into a quarter of their own plane. Countless rakshasa slaves work in the factories and smithies of Hammergrim even today, endlessly producing trade goods to fund the personal vendettas the Grey Protector has going with Dominus Infernus, Emperor of Artifice and various demon princes of the Abyss.

After recognizing even the mad frogs of Pandemonium didn’t let their own plane be taken right out of their claws, the rakshasa agreed they needed to change. It was perfectly clear why none of these invader deities tried to conquer the devils: Infernal Hierarchy was strong and wouldn’t have let them. Rakshasa too had to unite for strength, they had to stand together against the invaders if they were to avoid getting completely subjugated. Their entire remaining race gathered in one of the most crowded meetings in the history of the planes and made an oath to stand together against all nonrakshasa and faithfully serve the worthiest among them. Obviously, that worthiest one had to be determined. And, also obviously, many rakshasa were certain that worthy leader would be themselves. In the time it took for their civil wars to decide who was the most worthy (the one who’d be called maharaja), more deities flocked to Acheron and conquered realms for themselves. While Bane, Hextor, Wee Jas and all other deities of law and evil persuasion took over far smaller regions than Gruumsh or Laduguer, they were no less humiliating for the rakshasa.

Finally one raja managed to stand out. The one named Ravanna had defeated all challengers and proven himself to be the worthiest (aka most cunningly treacherous). He was crowned as the maharaja and his first decree was to demand worship from all the rakshasa, exactly like mortals of Material Plane do for their gods. His subjects weren’t very fond of the idea but Ravanna argued that his enemies were deities, therefore he had to have power like them if Acheron was to be retaken from divine grasp. They weren’t really buying it but they had to accept, for they were still lawful exemplars and had sworn to obey their maharaja. Ravanna, who had studied the mortal worlds and seen how new deities came to be, knew he needed to have a theme, a gimmick to focus the power of belief around. So he chose the most obvious ones that should appeal to rakshasa, unity and protection. Unfortunately, it didn’t work. Rakshasa didn’t really believe in Ravanna; despite obediently going through all the religious motions he’d come up with, they all knew he was just a rakshasa like them. And the news of the new maharaja and his desire to ascend to godhood had spread in the Lower Planes, fiends of all stripes were now coming over to Acheron just to witness and mock the obviously hollow religion rakshasa pretended to believe in to appease their foolish ruler. Ravanna fumed and bellowed, demanded his “worshippers” be more loyal and devout, believe harder, inventing more and more ridiculously contrived religious ceremonies as his subject grew to resent him more. All that was immense enjoyment to fiends and deities alike, even some mortals knowledgeable about the planes were catching on. It didn’t take long before Ravanna started to accumulate mocking monikers like the Paper Tiger, which drove him to even more stubbornly cling to his dogma and push the rakshasa. The ridicule didn’t stay limited to Ravanna himself either, the rakshasa race as a whole had become the laughingstock of the Lower Planes, even insane slaadi were looking down on them now (at least when they could remember). The collective amusement at the predicament of the rakshasa grew higher and higher. At least more deities had stopped trying to take over more of Acheron, everyone was having too much fun at the rakshasa’s expense.

Then one day, Ravanna suddenly ascended. Nobody was surprised more than the rakshasa, whose resentment was very close to a boiling point and were just a hair away from finally rebelling against their maharaja. Overjoyed, they asked him just how he’d managed to ascend without any real worship and belief from his subjects. Ravanna then laughed at them, like everyone else in the planes had been laughing at them ever since he'd started them on his grand journey to ascension. He then proceeded to enslave all the remaining free rakshasa who’d sworn to obey the maharaja and took over all the rest of plane that still wasn’t under the control of any deities, becoming the final lawful evil god to conquer the last remaining slice of free Acheron.

From that day on, nobody laughed at Striped Jester. But he laughs with everyone else, nobody enjoys this joke of an exemplar race more than Ravanna himself. Lord of Misrule has proven to the multiverse that tigers don’t change their stripes, even if they ascend to godhood.

The name of Mockery was an inspiration for this, I'll accept that much. I was also itching to go for some Lower Planes, those are always popular. But more than enough ink has been spilled about devils and demons. Devils and demons are very old hats by now, whereas there's 5 more lower planes and their exemplars who keep getting shafted. Also, Acheron was always the coolest of hells, yet never had a proper exemplar fiend, therefore I found one. Sure, these specific rakshasa aren't cool and hip, but the natives of the Plane of War and Oppression need to be oppressed imo.Also also, Ravanna raging at the mocking fiend tourists as a sketch with John Cleese in it is what I like to imagine here.

[Beneath]

I'm interested in your theories on hags now. I generally have them as relatives of fey and ogres (Annis hags in particular are transparently the same species as ogres. possibly older, wiser ogresses, possibly just ogresses, tho that doesn't explain why there are so many more ogres than Annis hags. unless they, like, eat their daughters to avoid having heirs who might usurp them. or their sisters, for the same reason. but also given how many ogres there are and what that implies about birthrates idk if independent, strong, territorial hags would want to have that many kids).

I've been meaning to write, like, a Grand Unified Theory of Hags for a while now though.

Oh, also, are Slaad pandemonic in this cosmos? Interesting. What originally comes from Limbo?

[Pronounceable]

your theories on hags now.

What's there to theorize? Hags are just hags: magical critters who disguise themselves with shapeshifting as hot chicks to eat you. Succubi, on the other hand, are magical critters who disguise themselves with shapeshifting as hot chicks to eat your soul. Clearly has no relation whatsoever. Erinyes are also unrelated magical critters who disguise themselves with shapeshifting as hot chicks to eat your soul, but they sometimes like to kick your ass instead. Meanwhile incubi are magical critters who disguise themselves with shapeshifting as hot studs to eat your soul, obviously a different critter that %100 merits another statblock. How else will we fill up a Monster Manual 7 to sell?

So I bring these magical exemplars who disguise themselves with shapeshifting as hot chicks or studs to eat your soul hailing from Hades. Unlike all the other exemplar races, they can reproduce with mortals and produce weaker, half-mortal versions of themselves. They're go nutsable on variants depending on mortal parent's race/sex/class/level/favorite bread.

Oh, also, are Slaad pandemonic in this cosmos? Interesting. What originally comes from Limbo?

Yes. Dunno. Haven't found anything I like as pure chaos exemplar but I know with %100 certainty that slaad have never in the history of ever been CN. Cos DnD is bad at alignment, which is a pattern. I think I'll have Limbo and Nirvana exemplarless (cos modrons are too awesome to waste on alignment incarnation and inevitables are dumb).

Aaanyway, we got an Upper Planes entry now for balance reasons. It's no DnD deity and a whole lot less famous than DoubleD, but she's the only solo bigwig from upstairs I could find.


MORWEL (eladrin paragon), the Queen of Stars
Domains: eladrin, good, chaos

Spoiler

Show

The eternal queen of eladrin is one of the oldest beings in existence and despises deities. Even Moradin, who saved her people from having to constantly battle demons of the Abyss by rearranging the planes into the Great Wheel many eons ago, gets little more than civility. She clearly remembers a time when there were no such things as death or scarcity in the multiverse, a time when only the immortal exemplar races of the planes existed and all conflicts were only over ideals. Then Overmothers’ brats appeared, treating the planes as if it was their personal playground and imposing their wills upon the exemplar races and later mortals of Material Plane. As Morwel is old enough to have witnessed the Dawn War and is one of a handful of beings who actually had the ovaries to interact with Selune in person (metaphorically, as eladrin don’t have any discernable organs), she’s pretty certain Luminous Overmother would have words with her obnoxious children if she could. The younger godlings are even worse in Morwel’s opinion, most of whom take it for granted that the multiverse belongs to deities first and don’t even recognize that they’re simply parasites feeding on mortals of Material.

The Queen of Stars, who takes her name from the starry night sky appearance of her plane, is generally considered to be one of the most powerful beings in existence and also the source of the strange, infinite creation power every being who enters Arborea inexplicably gains ever since the Great Wheel was created. Nobody knows how she can bestow an ability that’s usually limited to greater deities to a virtually limitless number of beings in a virtually infinite space, but she does. And not only she dictates what can and cannot be created, she can also revoke the powers from any being at will. This power of universal creation guarantees that Arborea is never threatened, as any single inhabitant trained in its use can give even a greater deity a run for its money. Since the Arborean creative power and items created by it only last as long as Morwel allows, no being can use it to disrupt the general peace of Arborea or harm an eladrin. Luckily for the rest of the multiverse, Queen’s Blessing is limited to her plane and anything created out of it vanishes if taken outside. Morwel isn’t at all shy about explaining that she’d use it conquer all the planes and destroy every deity if she could. She is very shy on explaining exactly how it works or where it came from however; according to her, a lady must have her secrets.

The same creation power is Morwel’s greatest weapon in her campaign against deities. Thanks to it, Arborea has become a utopic paradise where every type of being’s every material need is instantly fulfillable. Many inhabitants of Arborea live on a world of their own making, full of things they personally love; as a result the whole plane looks like an infinite night sky full of tiny glittering stars (think Little Prince). The only thing disallowed to everyone (except Morwel herself) is creating life; she explains the reason is to encourage everyone in Arborea to be nice, friendly and companionable to others, to make them seek others to fulfill their social needs, promoting goodness and friendship. The Queen of Stars charges her eladrin subjects with evangelizing, making sure every being in existence learn that Arborea is a utopia of such perfection, a paradise free of slavedrivers and parasites masquerading as divinity. Her goal is to convert every being in the multiverse to chaotic good so they can all come and live in Arborea (incidentally starving out all those pesky gods and eradicating all other exemplar races). For that, eladrin outside their plane face very stiff competition from virtually every deity and their planar servants, who all realize just how attractive the Arborean utopia can be for mortals, doing their very best to prevent agents of Morwel from contacting their mortal followers (which usually involves violence).

Exemplar races and rulers of other Outer Planes are also wary of eladrin evangelists and their tireless efforts to convert them but immortal planars or elementals are nowhere near as easy prey to Arborean spiel as mortals, and eladrin never use force or coercion for their evangelism. Officially, Morwel believes the ends never justify the means, so she makes absolutely certain any being persuaded to join the chaotic good cause chose it of their own free will. But unofficially, she simply wants to make sure eladrin are always seen as the good guys and underdogs, which would be impossible if eladrin went around kicking ass and taking names like they easily could. So they’re only allowed to use force to defend themselves against capture/torture/conversion and are actually ordered to lose and get banished back to Arborea if their attackers seem likely to just destroy their forms. The Plane of Friendship could make war on any other plane with impunity, they are the original defenders of the multiverse after all, the only reason demons of the Abyss didn’t infect the rest of the multiverse before the primordial brats even came out of hiding from under their mom’s skirt is because eladrins were kicking their sitting appendages (demons also lack discernable organs) back into the pit every time they tried to pour out. Even the Seven Celestial Hosts or the Tarterian Collective would crumble against the full might Morwel is capable of bringing to bear, but she can’t take on all the planes together or conquer Material Plane with its dozens upon dozens of resident deities. Even more importantly, the Queen of Stars knows that the Dawn War isn’t really over, that Overmothers are still fighting on an incomprehensible level and trying to convert the planes by force would only serve to weaken Luminous Overmother’s hold on them. So she's forced to play nice and be peaceful, bleeding out her rivals (aka the entire multiverse) only a few souls at a time.

That is not to say Morwel is gunshy. She doesn’t respond well to provocation, such as Dominus Infernus’ capture and conversion of the ancient demoness Pale Night into the archdevil Bensozia, then celebrating it as a great victory of law over chaos by marrying her. Pale Night being her ancient enemy from before the ordering of the planes and closest to thing to her equivalent from the Abyss, on top of Domina Infernus Bensozia’s uncanny resemblence to her own self, Queen Morwel figured Asmodeus was thumbing his nose at her personally; which is why she conspired with demons and guardinals to assassinate Bensozia, utilizing an Allmother’s Eye (aka sphere of annihilation) stolen from archduke Levistus of Inferno to frame him. The resulting massive civil war almost toppled Infernal Hierarchy, pushed Asmodeus into a strange period of depression and inactivity, reshuffling many positions of power in the Plane of Absolute Obedience and bringing a bit of chaos into the needlessly well ordered life of devils. Or the time she used her eladrin subjects to play matchmaker between the newly exiled Lolth and the sworn enemy of primordials Sune, just to return the discourtesy she owed to Corellon for his laughable attempt at courting her back in the days before creation of Arvandor, which has fueled no small amount of conflict (and fanfiction) among the divine parasites and also gained Arborea the favor of the two most devastatingly alluring beings in the multiverse. Morwel is yet to cash in her chips from them, but she’ll certainly demand something of them in a way that strengthens the causes of chaos and good.

The Queen of Stars is the paragon of chaotic good and is one of the most powerful, ambitious, manipulative and patient beings of the planes. She’s bound to Arborea and doesn’t seem to be able to leave it, which doesn’t stop her from exerting a large influence wherever she wishes. In her own way, she’s far more dangerous to the movers and shakers of the planes than any fiend or deity dwelling in Lower Planes but for the poor and oppressed masses of the multiverse, be they planar or mortal, she’ll ultimately be a savior.

I think my excessive fanboying of Planescape is showing here. I suspect I made Queen Morwel kinda too good but whatevs.
The original idea came from my desire to make Upper Planes better, giving each one a special gimmick because they're all boring and lame and goddamn interchangeable. Arborea got the heaven of artists and hippies concept, a plane where there's no material need so inhabitants can focus on their passions (or live in complete decadence). Then I looked into eladrin and found their queen and things kinda spiraled from there. So now we have a nonboring celestial race: evangelist eladrins and their expansionist warrior queen forced into peaceful philosophy. As enemies to all gods, atheism preachers and champions of underdog mortals, these eladrin should be eminently usable by any half competent DM.

[Fri]

Remind me, have you ever made a summary of the whole setting/cosmology and their history and such? Because I kinda remember you did, but I must've missed it 'cause I can't find it.

[Beneath]

Yeah, those are super-usable Eladrin. Both as allies, enemies, and mysterious agents whose aims don't quite align with or against yours.

I guess my interpretation of hags differs in that it de-emphasizes the shapeshifting to look like beautiful women to seduce and eat you bit, which puts a bit of distance between them and succubi, but I can see why with that part emphasized they're basically the same species (especially with night hags being fiends).

So then great wheel exemplars would be:
Nirvana (LN): None; Modrons live here to tend Mechanus and Inevitables might live here too
Acheron: Rakshasa
Nine Hells (LE): Devils
Gehenna: Daemons/Yugoloths
Gray Waste (NE): Hags/Succubi
Carceri: Demodands
The Abyss (CE): Demons
Pandemonium: Slaad
Limbo (CN): None
Ysgard: Valkyries?
Arborea (CG): Eladrin
Beastlands: ???
Elysium (NG): ??? (Angels? Devas?)
Bytopia: ???
Mt. Celestia (LG): Archons
Arcadia: ???

Where do the Seldarine live, in all this? Arvandor is a layer of Arborea in the conventional cosmology, right? but Morwel keeps deities out of Arborea for the most part, or is that just her layer?

[Pronounceable]

Remind me, have you ever made a summary of the whole setting/cosmology and their history and such? Because I kinda remember you did, but I must've missed it 'cause I can't find it.

Nnno? I have my boring laundry list history thing that I never posted. Maybe you remember stuff I wrote in other posts here, there's some bits and bobs about the multiverse outside the writeups.

great wheel exemplars

You got all the lower ones covered, can't decide on uppers myself so far. Usual suspects are deva-archon-guardinal-eladrin and I need three more names locked down. Debating merits of aasimon/angel/kami/eidolon/asura/yaksha/einherjar/valkyrie/loa, which is kinda pointless since I don't have planar gimmicks to match the names to.

"Canon" Arvandor used to be in Arborea (along with all other fairylike stuff) because Feywild didn't exist back then. However ours is in Positive, we have a Feywild (cos it's probably the best thing 4e came up with) and planes don't have layers. Layers do nothing that regular regions, zones, domains or realms can't do so we don't have them.
Arborea welcomes all deities of good and chaos despite Morwel's hatred of them, as they always bring souls by truckloads. Also lets her **** them up if they start straying from the cause, the last thing she wants is turncoats to CGity go free.

[Beneath]

Oh, right, I forgot about Guardianals as the default NG exemplars. Ysgard has to have Valkyries or Einwhatsits; something from Norse myth.

Why is Arborea still called Arborea other than tradition if it's not treeish anymore and all the treeishness got moved to the Feywild?

Good on getting rid of layers though. Planes work better finitely-sized, even if large (like, a truly infinite plane means that there's an area with a distance from here to the Hubble Deep Field on a side, with a population density of "random encounters exist here", meaning a population so vast that nothing you do can affect it. and that's boring), though the outer planes could be less that if they're all metaphorical anyway (when you physically go there, because you're physically in a metaphorical place, you force it into a metaphor that your physical body can interact with. but that metaphor probably isn't infinitely large either)

[Dmowskavitto]

Getting people to change their habits or acquire new skills is impossible. Puppies are teachable, but older dogs are less apt to be able to be trained, or so popular wisdom had it. By the same token, an octogenarian who has read the morning newspaper for decades is unlikely to be willing, much less eager, to switch to the online edition.

[Max_Killjoy]

Getting people to change their habits or acquire new skills is impossible. Puppies are teachable, but older dogs are less apt to be able to be trained, or so popular wisdom had it. By the same token, an octogenarian who has read the morning newspaper for decades is unlikely to be willing, much less eager, to switch to the online edition.

My dad just took up using the text-message function on his phone at the age of 73. We message back and forth during sporting events we're both watching, etc.

[Pronounceable]

^^This definitely tops the list of smartest spambots I've ever seen.

Also, you know you've made big on teh interwebs it if your thread is attracting spambots...


^^^Yeah, it's just tradition. I seriously considered renaming it Arcadia instead but then didn't.

[Max_Killjoy]

^^This definitely tops the list of smartest spambots I've ever seen.

Also, you know you've made big on teh interwebs it if your thread is attracting spambots...


^^^Yeah, it's just tradition. I seriously considered renaming it Arcadia instead but then didn't.

It was a spambot? Huh. Is it sad that it looked like some real posts I see in forum discussions?