Resurrecting Evil

The Briv'El waited twelve thousand and fifty-four years for this day.  The mountain eroded and the humans moved the great stones that marked their god's grave.  With quiet patience they watched the humans carefully remove the earth from Ba'al.  Bone-by-bone he appeared.  It would be time soon.  There was no prophecy, no portents nor visions of this day.  On a Sunday evening, on September 4th at 7:22pm the Briv'El sacrificed their lives to give life to their creator.  An evil being that walked this world before the oceans were born and before the sun burned bright, pulled itself out of the earth.  

World Building, Evil Religions

A while back there were a couple of excellent posts about evil and evil religions one by Friar Dave at Blood of Prokopius and the other by Rob Conley at Bat in the Attic. Friar Dave goes into detail about what is evil and his concept boils down the absence of good (or God) there is evil. Fair enough. But for gaming purposes it doesn't work for me. Rob Conley takes on evil religions from a historical point of view. It sparked quite the flurry of activity and debate. Rob's points are solid, but the problem I had with it is it based in reality. I don't know about all you out there, but I play a fantasy game with spell slinging wands and greedy little goblins and swords that glow and beans that turn into giant bean stalks and where decapitating a troll is celebrated with elven wine. I'm not anti-reality, in fact I use it as a foundation to my campaigns, but there is a strong fantasy element that lets me tweak whatever I want. And I want evil religions in my campaign. There, I said it and it doesn't make me a bad person.

Developing an evil religion is tricky. I don't like to make mine the mustache twirler. Again for this there are different ways I approach this. One version is a cult or sect of an established religion. This group is usually made up of extremists that have taken one part of the teachings and developed their entire philosophy around it. Skewing the intended meaning when taken out of context. These make wonderful enemies and add a lot of flavor on a small scale. Cults are formed around a charisma leader. The leader is usually well versed in the religion he is preaching. He develops an 'us against them' mentality. He wants to build his own power base by keeping those around him loyal by using fear. Soon you have this core of people who will do anything. When something threatens the power structure, whether that threat is within or outside the group, it is dealt with harshly. All in the name of the god they worship.

The second version I use is 'it depends on which side of the line you are standing' evil. I have two gods that are always battling and their people follow suit. The followers of Delaquin think the followers of Sarrath suck and Sarrath followers of Delaquain are the suckiest. Both believe the other is evil. If I have characters that are coming in from the Delaquain side and they are in a culture that prays to her then Sarrath is going to come off as the evilest dude since the guy who decided to put peanut butter and jelly in the same jar. That just ain't right. And the same if they decided to start on the Sarrath side. In the beginning it's easy for one side to start hacking away at the other. They are evil and need to be destroyed. But once the religion is explored they may find they have way more in common than different. Epiphany baby.

The third type of evil religion is the true evil. The kind of evil where the followers of both Sarrath and Delaquain agree to put aside their differences and deal with their common enemy. This is usually some sort of primal force such as chaos or in my campaign oblivion that manifests itself and needs to be purged from the realm. Is this a religion? There is a strong enough movement that believes if the structure of pantheon can be destroyed and all those in power are brought down then a new world can be rebuilt in their view of how things should be. Another example from my campaign is when the god of the underworld decided he should lord of the gods and started putting foot to them. And everyone pays their respects to the god of the underworld, he decides who goes where and they want to get where they are going. During this time this god ended up murdering one of the more beloved goddesses who promoted peace and harmony. Her death corrupted him further. So you have this god gone insane who controls where the souls go. The people are screwed. The gods are screwed. He demands to be the only god worshipped and his clerics threaten if the people don't worship him alone than when they die they will be sent to the very worst of places.

The forth version of an evil religion is the racial version. This is a fantasy campaign and you may have evil races. Well they general worship someone who shapes their beliefs. The one that always stood out for me from the old Deities & Demigods was Gruumsh, god of the orcs. It seemed like a natural fit. So this kind of god can be added as an evil religion because they have a prolific race backing him or her.

Next part will include kingdom and empire building.

No Evil Religions?

I'd thought I'd comment on Mr. Conley's post today. One, because I think he is wrong and two he's been a good friend for more years than I can remember and sometimes arguing with him can be good fun. The argument is whether there can be evil religions. He uses human history to make his point that at no time has there ever been an evil religion. I won't get into historical relevancies. I don't need to. My argument is there can be evil religions in my gaming world. I'm the GM so 'poof' there is an evil religion in my world.

Is it that simple? Not really. Not if you want to make it fun and have some sort of logic. But it's no more work than having to develop any religion on any alignment. If I were going to argue about what religions would or would not exist it would be chaotic aligned religions. You need structure and cohesion of laws and beliefs to make it work and a chaotic aligned religion wouldn't have that structure. Alignments are not my favorite thing in the world, but since this discussion began with the alignment terms I have used them.

As for something being evil or good it is often a matter of perspective. Again though, I believe Rob was speaking about the mustache twirling baddie who exists only to cause grief and pain even to those who follow him faithfully. I gotta say there is room in my campaign for such a villainous deity. Why not? I would need to do the work to justify why these people would want to adhere to such a god. I would also need to take into account whether the power of the gods in my world is equal to the number of those who worship him or if they are just incredibly powerful beings who can impose their will onto others.

Let's go for the latter for now. Bronson the Dreadful is an evil god whose power is not dependant on his worshippers. He is a mean tempered, jealous, vengeful son of a bitch. But others find value in following him. An example could be they are an enslaved race and Bronson is a huge fan of revenge, sabotage and mayhem. He inspires this enslaved race to revolt even though they know they might be crushed, but gives them hope. Now Bronson the Dreadful could give two turds in a punchbowl about these people, but because they entertain him he will grant a few powers to make the game more interesting. But to get these powers they must sacrifice their most beloved to him. And some will. And more will if they see those who have sacrificed have succeeded. And as people are, even if no laws or codes exist they will begin to develop them.

There are many reasons why an evil religion can exist. I am not talking about the perspective argument, but the cartoon this is good this is bad version. And it can work. It can add a lot to a campaign. And sometimes it's nice to have a bad guy who makes no bones about it. He stands there with a wide stance, hands on hips, black mustache waxed and curled, dressed all in black and with a sinister cackle he looks at all the land and all the people around him and says, "It is all mine. All mine I tell you. Muhahaha."