After talking to some DMs with their own worlds, I've found some find it difficult to come up with Good Deities.
After talking with players, I found out that many find a lot of the good aligned deities to be rather dull, or rather cliche.
And admittedly, I find it hard to come up with good ideas for Good Gods, and I do find the standard "Good-aligned god of Holy Goodness" to be boring...
And it's all fine and good to say that this god and this god are different because this one's a god of... honor and this one's a god of.... purity? But they often aren't too different, and often a lot of their realms and areas of expertise overlap.
So in short, I, and quite a few others, have found that good Good Deities are hard to find, and often aren't fun to play, or atleast not nearly as much as the Neutral and Evil gods in many cases.
So what are your ideas for good deities? If you have a world, what are some Good Deities you're proud of? What is a Good Deity you've seen and really really liked? [ 04-17-2003: Message edited by: Lashanna ]
In my game world, there are two Great Elemental Spirits for each of the basic elements. One is constructive/good, and the other is destructive/bad. While not actually Gods, they are of a similar power level and can have followers in much the same way.
This gives me more deities to use, without coming up with extra things for them to be Gods of. [ 04-17-2003: Message edited by: Palador ChibiDragon ]
As such, the big, main god is considered "good", but is a right bastard who would be very happy commiting multiple genocide. As such, despite being the first sentient being on this world and responsable for the creation of two races and magic as it is known, he's locked up in a big pillar of glass. He still has followers. In fact, part of the storyline involves him being released...
The big thing with gods is to make them flawed. If you're creating a god and are never, ever going to put that god in the story in any way, just a theological thingus, it's OK to have contrived plots, a really wacky, unbelievable history of the world accompanying that god, and other such eccentricities. If you're going with the theological, "maybe this guy exists butwe don't know for sure, but he has a big giant church dedicated to him" kind of thing, try to make it as close to real life church business as possible... accompanying "history of the creation of the world", teachings, lessons on how to live your life and such.
If the gods ARE going to be in the story, make them HUMAN. Greek mythology is an excellent jumping off point for this - Zeus, big main god, was a cheating bastard, and his wife was a total vengeful bitch. Make gods with phobias, madnesses, compulsions, and things that don't seem exactly... perfect. Also, don't feel compelled to give your god an aspect, like "god of honor" or "god of the sun" or anything. Another thing is to base gods around what's going on in your world, as gods generally spring up out of unexplainable things, like sun gods, moon gods, muses, that sort of thing.
Lyinar Ka`Bael, Piney Fresh Druidess - Luclin
Heironeus is a god of valor, chivalry and honor. Something we revere as virtuous. However, much of his dogma revolves around the outright extermination and attack-without-question of evil.
Kord is a god of strength and also good. His dogma is about protecting the weaker. But it also revolves around growing strong as an individual.
Pelor is a god of light and healing. He protects those in need all the time, regardless of whether they're weak, strong, or honorable. That's why he's popular.
Goodness is as relative as evil. The quick-witted pick up on this.
Female schizophrenic god in my world. One half of her is an innocent good god who dislikes violence and loves to help others. Her opposite half is an extreme seductress who's basic reaction to most things would be "Wonder what its like in bed..." Each side is independent of the other and dislikes the actions of the other, causing many temples to be infirmiries and brothels at the same time.
So the wounded get better by rigorous amounts of sex applied to them? 
quote:
Katrinity had this to say about Matthew Broderick:
...So the wounded get better by rigorous amounts of sex applied to them?
How else would you cure depression?
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Ferret wrote this then went back to looking for porn:
Shanga/Rachel.
Female schizophrenic god in my world. One half of her is an innocent good god who dislikes violence and loves to help others. Her opposite half is an extreme seductress who's basic reaction to most things would be "Wonder what its like in bed..." Each side is independent of the other and dislikes the actions of the other, causing many temples to be infirmiries and brothels at the same time.
Yeah, I have to say...
I love Shanga/Rachel, and it's a great idea for a Goddess of Love, since there are different aspects of love.
...then again, I'm a bit biased, as I actually play a Cleric who worships Shanga/Rachel, and who is herself, schizophrenic akin to her Goddess, and has a young, shy gentle, child, and latches on to D's enormous, but fairly bright and gentle, warrior guy as a big brother or father. She hangs on him a lot.
She also has the other side, which tends towards the brash, forward, 'extreme seductress' as Ferret put it, . This persona tends to spend most of her time trying to convince Adrecia's sorceress to sleep with her, and hangs all over her, and basicly pesters her with constant advances. This is made especially fun, as Adrecia's sorceress is all up tight, prudish, bookish, and she gets all nervous and scared when my cleric starts to mess with her, 
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Parce, I know they don't need to be "bad ass." It just seems like a lot of Evil gods have so much more personality to them. Something actually, that I very rarely see, surprisingly, is a Deity of Love, a Good one. Not necessarily any form of sexual love, or of lovers even. The love of brother and sister, etc. It's fun to play a matronly cleric, who heals the rest of the group, and treats them like her children.
I see plenty of Deities of Lust or the sexual aspect of "love." But they're pretty much wholely evil.
And while I know you say that "good is relative", in the minds of most DMs, or players, or normal people/NPCs in a world, Evil is not. So Doing good, relatively, rarely flies.
And the Flawed Greek God setup can make it difficult to devote your life to the ethos of a deity. The Greek gods were drama figures, it seems, and a lot of times, they weren't really the sources of "How To Live Your Life" like many gods are... [ 04-17-2003: Message edited by: Lashanna ]
Hooray for being anal!
I think it's far too easy to pigeonhole good deities and make them into beings who would never do anything wrong or evil. I think the best example of a "good" deity that breaks with this stereotype can be found in the Old Testament. God loves all his children, but readily punishes them if they do not do his word. While the god of the Old Testament essentially fills every role that world builders typically have in their pantheon, the idea can still be broken down into smaller deities. Perhaps a god of purity who destroys gatherings of the immoral? A goddess of love, who intervenes directly in the lives of the mortal masses to bring them to love, but who, almost naively, ignores the strife she may put them through?
Good and Evil are all relative. A good god doesn't have to be righteous, pure, and true -- if all benevolent deities in fantasy worlds were, it'd get boring pretty quick, don't you think?
As far as multiple personailty disorders, the head honcho god in Aleria has to deal with that. It's in his snippet.
I strayed away from the typical Goddess of Love Template, in Ives. Not a lust kind of love for her, but not exactly a motherly type either. Most tradgic and doomed. Specially since her whole ethos revoles around all the loss she has suffered, and loving a mortal etc etc.
The other 'good' gods are a little more interesting, I just need to finish the damn thing. Hell I need to finish the evil set as well.. Only the main evil and his son up so far.. I am so far behind. 
But everyone assumes schizophrenia is MPD and it's easier to say Schizo, than to explain MPD and all that...
But yeah, I'm not saying they should be unflawed, righteous, and pure. But they still should be somewhat, y'know, good. And it seems like a deity of Purity smiting gatherings of the immoral... I dunno, it doesn't seem right.
Like, Kraknek's god, Dwarden, he was a good god.
Maybe, in the end, it's just more fun being evil.
Like Za has a goddess Kaanaya, of self-satisfaction and desire. The religion is about indulging in your desires (not necessarily sexual, mind you), regardless of anything else. So she's basicly Lust, Ambition, Greed, Hedonism, and the like. A strong connection to the loss of innocence though, and the stripping of morals.
She's fun to play under. Her followers can be infinitely diverse, some not really evil, other than that they just simply don't do anything good, and then some could be sadists of the worst degree. And anything in between.
However, she's evil.
And I won't even get into the debate about evil characters, or good characters who fall from grace. I always just end up angry with people I love around here.
So then, since I'm basicly cornered into Neutrality and Good... I really don't see any deities there that draw me in... It makes it really hard for me to play a cleric or a Paladin or Druid, and I like clerics and pallies quite a bit, 
.
But there is a reason Real life works like that, and it applies to fantasy games too. Not having restrictions and being all messed up and stuff like that all the time generally wont get you very far. Like you said, its a good fast way to go out with a bang, but in the long run it's hard to manage feasibly. So good gods tend to represent more of what we are already familiar with, while the evil gods get to do more of the not so nice things that as decent inviduals we are not allowed to experiment with.
Good gods can have their quirks and such too, but in general they are still confined to what we are used to as 'good', so it remains as limiting.
Sas'Sara for instance, as I've said before is completely nuts. As her worshiper it would be fun for a bit, playing all the crazy stuff, but with her severity of psycosis, logically you wouldn't last long because you'd basically be going entirely insane. Good or Evil party wouldn't really matter, you would justifiably be the bain of the entire working party after a while. Have fun, for a bit, die pretty quick. If not from some psycotic choice of your own, then by your own party stabbing you in the back. Thats not to mention the fact she has no specific ethos, choices, or edict to follow. So what reason would anyone feasibly follow her. It's stuff like that thats the problem.
Thinking about your posts
(and billing you for it) since 2001
quote:
Katrinity had this to say about pies:
I can't stop seeing Dwarf-den with his name
Considering he's patron deity of dwarves...
And Dwarden is NOT cool. Dwarden is an evil SoB. [ 04-17-2003: Message edited by: Someone Else ]
quote:
Someone Else said this about your mom:
Considering he's patron deity of dwarves...
Oho! Point Arttemis!
I'm not really talking about stuff like her...
But gods like her, or Ter'Reana, or stuff like that, would be more fun to RP with (and by with, I mean against).
The subversive villains like that are always the fun ones...
The ones that would try to tempt or corrupt the heros... Not enough of those..
Rorret is cool, and nice, and has great quirks. But the villains that are just out to kill you... Need a break every once and awhile...
It just seems stuff where the villain is trying something besides killing you end up more fun RPwise... Like the Bosiane slavers that captured the group... that was fun RP. Need more of that, more often.
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Verily, Someone Else doth proclaim:
Considering he's patron deity of dwarves...And Dwarden is NOT cool. Dwarden is an evil SoB.
FEAR DWARDEN HE IS SEXX0R
Thinking about your posts
(and billing you for it) since 2001
quote:
This one time, at Katrinity camp:
True, but just find his name funny ^.^
I wanted him to be kinda funny, he's like master debaucherer. And like the really good emotion loving father type... That will kick your ass out in the woodshed to teach you a lesson cause he has a hard time admiting it.. Playing stuff like that out with Art made it a lot of fun.
He really cares, and he's really good, but give him ale and whores anyday and dont dare call him a soft heart cause he'd kick your ass six ways to sunday to prove you wrong.
quote:
Ferret thought this was the Ricky Martin Fan Club Forum and wrote:
How else would you cure depression?
Edit: Tag [ 04-17-2003: Message edited by: Delphi Aegis ]
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NSFW may only be used when the thread's subject matter is, in fact, not safe for work.These tags only retain their special meanings when they are a thread tag, not a tag on any post within a thread.
[ 04-17-2003: Message edited by: Gydfather ]
Thinking about your posts
(and billing you for it) since 2001
Technically he's a Lawful Neutral power, but I categorize him as being good because he does a Duty (IE cares for the souls of the departed and sees to it that they go to the right place).
sigpic courtesy of This Guy, original modified by me
quote:
Gydfather wrote this then went back to looking for porn:
Uh huh. Which is why instead of doing a straight link, I linked it as a NSFW image with the tag.
You may verily biteth me.-eth.
She's a CG goddess who left the FR elven pantheon because she thought the drow pantheon was going to be unbalanced. Her priests must feed hungry people they pass as long as the people do not threaten them, and dance under moonlight.
However, she also believes her people deserve a place in the surface world and will fight or ally with evil gods to further that purpose.
From my world again, Namanda, Mother-Goddess of the Saethi and big earth-mother type. She constantly looks at the big picture and considers the world her child, nurturing it and tweaking and nudging here and there where it's needed. She's responsable for the planting of the forests along the major continent, the creation of the eastern continent and, when the forests were taken over by Danadar, the creation of the Saethi to balance them out. She's really active in the world, but tends to be a bit fanatical and step on a lot of toes while doing her work... she has nothing but good intentions but tends to barrel over everyone and everything to get her purposes met.
Example... dragons. Big, powerful, killer strong creatures. Magic was a part of daily life for them, and they wielded a special breed of magic that was incredibly strong. Even without that magic they'd be trouble, as even a one of them is the awe-inspiring god-beasts of legend. Seeking to create a space for themselves and themselves alone, they basically yoinked a large part of the northern hemisphere up really high, magically altered the temperature to extreme cold, and set up shop there. Everything above that wall died, and this made Namanda a very pissed off goddess. So she basically divinely bitchslapped them. In her rage, she withered them... sealed away their magic, made them unable to exist outside of the Glacier Wall they created, struck their intelligence till they were little more than big lizards, made them unable to breed and brought their dead back against them as dracoliches. She never actually DID anything about the Glacier Wall, because by the time she had cooled down enough to consider it, Kata had already created the Harpies and they were living there.
Eventually she yoinked a Harpy and corrupted her into killing one of the Dragon-Gods (Dragon-God = mortal god type that keeps the dragon race from sliding into extinction), thus angering Kata against her AND the dragons even more, plus making the dragons really dislike Harpies...
Good intentions, but she screws up a lot. I like her.
