So I've been designing the pantheon I'm going to use in my homebrew setting.
I'm limiting myself to two gods per alignment, and it's been going pretty well. I've run into a bit of a roadblock however.
I've got one Lawful Evil God: Lilitu, Goddess of Tyranny, Pride, Oppression, Empires and Dark Deals. I really like this god, however, I cannot for the life of me think of anything else I could use to make a second Lawful Evil god. I've had a few ideas, but not been particularly enthusiastic on them.
Looking for potential ideas I could use to make a second lawful evil god, and would be grateful for any and all ideas.
I think the problem you have is that Lilitu's portfolio is too broad. Strip away dark deals and spin it off into another god who deals in contracts and manipulation.
I have two lawful evil gods in my own homebrew pantheon: Hesnera, Goddess of Punishment. The executioner of the gods, who carries out swift punishments to those who have earned them. And Dyz, God of Exchanges, of tradeoffs and bad deals. Feel free to use either one.
A potential one that comes to mind: a death deity. Bear in mind that "Lawful" doesn't necessarily mean "laws written down" so much as it does "order"; be tthat natural or imposed. Death makes for a natural fit there: as an "exchange of energies" so to speak. It can be treated as inherently transactional, and there are all sorts of death god motifs to play with. Opens the door to interesting dynamics with those that violate.bend this "debt that all life pays"; Necromancers, Clerics etc. Exchanging souls to bring someone back, etc.
One simple way to approach this is to split the "portfolio" for your two LE gods where one is more Evil than Lawful, while the other is more Lawful than Evil.
So for example, if we make Lilitu LAWFUL + evil, her domain becomes: Tyranny, Oppression, Empires, Conquest and Domination - she is the patron of tyrants and conquerors, of those who break weak nations and inferior peoples in service to building stronger nations, ruled by superior peoples. Her champions are the calm within the storm, indifferent to the idea of mercy.
And for her counterpart who is lawful + EVIL, their domain becomes: Pride, Dark Deals, Ritual Sacrifice, Necromancy - a goddess who listens in the dark for those seek power, and offers means to those brave enough, desperate enough, to seek out her wisdom. She is not duplicitous - the power she offers is real, the cost is always horrifying, and she always honours her contracts. Her true name is never known (this is of course a necessity when it comes to infernal / abyssal / cthonic contracts), so she would have various epithets instead: the lady of the crossing, the crone of the ledger, the child of the first pact, etc.
In a sense this has the potential to veer off into NE territory, but this is why I'm emphasizing the nature of honouring contracts. A deal's a deal, and you always have to pay what's owed.
Don't split. Keep her as is, but fill in the invisible gap where she doesn't manifest.
Her twin brother, Nithanth, is a Devil who appears like a beautiful person to whomever gazes upon him. He is a manipulator and begins chains of events that will lead to disaster, but there's always a trick to what he does—a tiny flaw that is usually overlooked. The observant and thoughtful can head off the disaster by exposing the flaw. This way, the individuals involved are still in control, but their desires and emotions get in the way of seeing clearly.
Leland Gaunt (from the novel, Needful Things, not the movie) is a perfect example. The Devil in the movie, Oh God! You Devil! is another example. Both instigate scenarios, but the people involved are the ones who fulfill it. Mr. Gaunt's methods always include a tiny flaw that exposes the problem such as:
the hit-and-run vehicle accident that killed the Sherrif's family: the video footage that blamed another townsfolk showed the Sherrif's family not wearing seatbelts even though his wife was neurotic about them all wearing seatbelts, but the still-grieving Sherrif missed it.
The Devil in Oh God! You Devil! was more about setting off a Rube Goldberg chain of events that would be difficult to lead back to his involvement.
As a hidden manipulator, his existence is known only to very few.
EDIT: The reason I believe this is still Lawful is due to the fact that all the planning involved means everything follows a logical progression and this Devil follows a strict rule on how he operates to ensure the people involved doom themselves. Deviating from the anticipated plan is the means of defeating his plots.
Human. Male. Possibly. Don't be a divider. My characters' backgrounds are written like instruction manuals rather than stories. My opinion and preferences don't mean you're wrong. I am 99.7603% convinced that the digital dice are messing with me. I roll high when nobody's looking and low when anyone else can see.🎲 “It's a bit early to be thinking about an epitaph. No?” will be my epitaph.
A Lawful Evil Sun-God who represents the Light, Order and War Domains, a cruel but honourable deity that leads a small Pantheon with an iron fist and whose light shines on all, regardless of their needs and circumstances, and demands slavish worship and utter fealty from all its light touches. Also sends out regular crusades against any who would threaten their control over the Domains of Light, Order and War.
On the one hand, they keep the cycle of day and night going, their orders are gunning for every Undead they see, and they bring stability where-ever they go. On the other hand, they're a God who brings order through constant warfare against the unbelievers, there is no compassion or understanding given, only unyielding demands for obedience to draconian laws, and any and every other God and faith system has to either bend the knee to this God or there will be bloody, unending war until they do.
A Lawful Evil Death God who represents the inevitable end of life and works to keep the balance of Life and Death going, no matter how cruel or heart-breaking they have to be to do it. Controlling the Death and Twilight Domains, this God is fine to let healers run around and do their work, saving lives and mending wounds ... up until Mortals start dabbling with Immortality and Undeath. Then the followers done their Skull Masks and hide their identities and form well-organised cells of soldiers and zealots who will burn an entire city to the ground if necessary to keep an Alchemist's recipe for extending life-spans from ever being replicated, or trigger the fall of the greatest institute of learning in the land to cripple a Wizard's experimentation into Lichdom, regardless of how many other noble pursuits may also be crippled in the process. Publicly, it might even be a minor Death God whose role is simply tending to the Dead waiting for their turn to be judged by Greater Deities of Death, but in secret, this is the God of Death that steps in to slash and burn before the world has to suffer another Vecna or Red Wizards of Thay scenario.
A Lawful Evil God of Life would be an interesting twist, controlling the Domains of Life, Nature and Peace and dictating strong, controlling rules to the Mortals to promote healthy social interaction between the races, balance the needs of civilisation and the wilds, and promote the advancement of benevolent teachings and social customs. And if you don't live up to these lofty ideals, it is time for plagues, pestilence, droughts and floods. One way or another, this God is going to have their utopia for Mortals, even if it has to drive them to the brink of extinction to get it through the Mortals heads that it is the only God they need to follow, and they only ever has to do what it tells them, and nothing else. A God who might very well have started out as benevolent and compassionate, but millennia of watching Mortals grow and squabble and waste their potential, and turn to other Gods after this one raised them up in the first place, has curdled the nature of the God and made it a domineering and unyielding entity whose plans and agendas have twisted into a vile caricature of what they once were.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
So I've been designing the pantheon I'm going to use in my homebrew setting.
I'm limiting myself to two gods per alignment, and it's been going pretty well. I've run into a bit of a roadblock however.
I've got one Lawful Evil God: Lilitu, Goddess of Tyranny, Pride, Oppression, Empires and Dark Deals. I really like this god, however, I cannot for the life of me think of anything else I could use to make a second Lawful Evil god. I've had a few ideas, but not been particularly enthusiastic on them.
Looking for potential ideas I could use to make a second lawful evil god, and would be grateful for any and all ideas.
Many thanks in advance!
I think the problem you have is that Lilitu's portfolio is too broad. Strip away dark deals and spin it off into another god who deals in contracts and manipulation.
Legislatia, the dark god of the law of unintended consequences.
Cry HAVOC! and let slip the mustelids of war...
I have two lawful evil gods in my own homebrew pantheon: Hesnera, Goddess of Punishment. The executioner of the gods, who carries out swift punishments to those who have earned them. And Dyz, God of Exchanges, of tradeoffs and bad deals. Feel free to use either one.
That sounds a little more chaotic than lawful.
One idea: Thurantan, lawful evil god of dark destinies, cruel fates, and unavoidable tragedies.
A potential one that comes to mind: a death deity. Bear in mind that "Lawful" doesn't necessarily mean "laws written down" so much as it does "order"; be tthat natural or imposed. Death makes for a natural fit there: as an "exchange of energies" so to speak. It can be treated as inherently transactional, and there are all sorts of death god motifs to play with. Opens the door to interesting dynamics with those that violate.bend this "debt that all life pays"; Necromancers, Clerics etc. Exchanging souls to bring someone back, etc.
One simple way to approach this is to split the "portfolio" for your two LE gods where one is more Evil than Lawful, while the other is more Lawful than Evil.
So for example, if we make Lilitu LAWFUL + evil, her domain becomes: Tyranny, Oppression, Empires, Conquest and Domination - she is the patron of tyrants and conquerors, of those who break weak nations and inferior peoples in service to building stronger nations, ruled by superior peoples. Her champions are the calm within the storm, indifferent to the idea of mercy.
And for her counterpart who is lawful + EVIL, their domain becomes: Pride, Dark Deals, Ritual Sacrifice, Necromancy - a goddess who listens in the dark for those seek power, and offers means to those brave enough, desperate enough, to seek out her wisdom. She is not duplicitous - the power she offers is real, the cost is always horrifying, and she always honours her contracts. Her true name is never known (this is of course a necessity when it comes to infernal / abyssal / cthonic contracts), so she would have various epithets instead: the lady of the crossing, the crone of the ledger, the child of the first pact, etc.
In a sense this has the potential to veer off into NE territory, but this is why I'm emphasizing the nature of honouring contracts. A deal's a deal, and you always have to pay what's owed.
>> #OpenDND
Don't split. Keep her as is, but fill in the invisible gap where she doesn't manifest.
Her twin brother, Nithanth, is a Devil who appears like a beautiful person to whomever gazes upon him. He is a manipulator and begins chains of events that will lead to disaster, but there's always a trick to what he does—a tiny flaw that is usually overlooked. The observant and thoughtful can head off the disaster by exposing the flaw. This way, the individuals involved are still in control, but their desires and emotions get in the way of seeing clearly.
Leland Gaunt (from the novel, Needful Things, not the movie) is a perfect example. The Devil in the movie, Oh God! You Devil! is another example. Both instigate scenarios, but the people involved are the ones who fulfill it. Mr. Gaunt's methods always include a tiny flaw that exposes the problem such as:
the hit-and-run vehicle accident that killed the Sherrif's family: the video footage that blamed another townsfolk showed the Sherrif's family not wearing seatbelts even though his wife was neurotic about them all wearing seatbelts, but the still-grieving Sherrif missed it.
The Devil in Oh God! You Devil! was more about setting off a Rube Goldberg chain of events that would be difficult to lead back to his involvement.
As a hidden manipulator, his existence is known only to very few.
EDIT: The reason I believe this is still Lawful is due to the fact that all the planning involved means everything follows a logical progression and this Devil follows a strict rule on how he operates to ensure the people involved doom themselves. Deviating from the anticipated plan is the means of defeating his plots.
Human. Male. Possibly. Don't be a divider.
My characters' backgrounds are written like instruction manuals rather than stories. My opinion and preferences don't mean you're wrong.
I am 99.7603% convinced that the digital dice are messing with me. I roll high when nobody's looking and low when anyone else can see.🎲
“It's a bit early to be thinking about an epitaph. No?” will be my epitaph.
Couple of concepts.
A Lawful Evil Sun-God who represents the Light, Order and War Domains, a cruel but honourable deity that leads a small Pantheon with an iron fist and whose light shines on all, regardless of their needs and circumstances, and demands slavish worship and utter fealty from all its light touches. Also sends out regular crusades against any who would threaten their control over the Domains of Light, Order and War.
On the one hand, they keep the cycle of day and night going, their orders are gunning for every Undead they see, and they bring stability where-ever they go. On the other hand, they're a God who brings order through constant warfare against the unbelievers, there is no compassion or understanding given, only unyielding demands for obedience to draconian laws, and any and every other God and faith system has to either bend the knee to this God or there will be bloody, unending war until they do.
A Lawful Evil Death God who represents the inevitable end of life and works to keep the balance of Life and Death going, no matter how cruel or heart-breaking they have to be to do it. Controlling the Death and Twilight Domains, this God is fine to let healers run around and do their work, saving lives and mending wounds ... up until Mortals start dabbling with Immortality and Undeath. Then the followers done their Skull Masks and hide their identities and form well-organised cells of soldiers and zealots who will burn an entire city to the ground if necessary to keep an Alchemist's recipe for extending life-spans from ever being replicated, or trigger the fall of the greatest institute of learning in the land to cripple a Wizard's experimentation into Lichdom, regardless of how many other noble pursuits may also be crippled in the process. Publicly, it might even be a minor Death God whose role is simply tending to the Dead waiting for their turn to be judged by Greater Deities of Death, but in secret, this is the God of Death that steps in to slash and burn before the world has to suffer another Vecna or Red Wizards of Thay scenario.
A Lawful Evil God of Life would be an interesting twist, controlling the Domains of Life, Nature and Peace and dictating strong, controlling rules to the Mortals to promote healthy social interaction between the races, balance the needs of civilisation and the wilds, and promote the advancement of benevolent teachings and social customs. And if you don't live up to these lofty ideals, it is time for plagues, pestilence, droughts and floods. One way or another, this God is going to have their utopia for Mortals, even if it has to drive them to the brink of extinction to get it through the Mortals heads that it is the only God they need to follow, and they only ever has to do what it tells them, and nothing else. A God who might very well have started out as benevolent and compassionate, but millennia of watching Mortals grow and squabble and waste their potential, and turn to other Gods after this one raised them up in the first place, has curdled the nature of the God and made it a domineering and unyielding entity whose plans and agendas have twisted into a vile caricature of what they once were.