Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Skrymir 08-03-07, 10:43 AM	I'm working on a campaign and thought of a problem: good gods. When the evil potency of a villain becomes epic, his goals could correlate with the interests of the gods. I don't want to tell the specifics of my campaign because I fear my friends to read this and not knowing it's me writing 'till they realize it when I throw the villain on them. Well, let's think of great, psychotic evil things - like annihilating all forms of life on the material plane. Is there anything that prvents the gods from just removing my villain from existence? The only thing I know of that's near fitting such an idea would be the pact primeval, but my villain can't take it into account.
vegetalss4 08-03-07, 11:01 AM	what are the pact primeval?
Skrymir 08-03-07, 11:29 AM	the pact primeval is the contract between Asmodeus and the gods, that he's allowed to gather evil souls to gain power from to run his hell. In fact, Asmodeus tricked the gods into signing a contract of loopholes which he used to be allowed to corrupt souls and trick them onto the path of lawful evil and/or signing in to a faustian pact to give away their souls for some special favour. I mentioned it because it's for Asmodeus what I search for my villain: Something to protect him from the wrath of the gods even though doing something most foul and evil - corrupting souls.
caeruleus 08-03-07, 11:56 AM	Many campaign settings have agreements among the gods not to get directly involved in mortal affairs. It makes sense. If one god got rid of another god's follower, that other god would return the favor, and soon there'd be nothing left. Sometimes an overdeity enforces it (like Ao in the Forgotten Realms) and sometimes the gods come to the agreement on their own (like in the World of Greyhawk). That's why gods have clerics and so forth - their will is done among the mortals through their worshippers. And why would you villian have to take this sort of thing into account? It probably wouldn't occur to him that the gods would wipe him out that directly.
MCage 08-04-07, 02:32 PM	The Pact Primevil is for Lawful deities only i think, or rather i belive it was only signed by lawful ones. It all depends on how you use your deities. Are they active in mortal affairs, as in do they send avatars to defend cities where they are venerated? How about cities that just have the majority in the city? Do the ammount of worshippers corilate to the deity's power level directly? Hashing out these things will give you a clearer picture of what exactly your deities do with their spare time. If they indeed do spend time on mortal affairs the only thing stopping them is other deities. What i do (and have done) is for PC's that grow stong enough to be noticed by the gods (and if your Villain has been noticed id assume your PC's have been too) is one of two things. A. Have the Gods broker a deal between the offended god and the protecting god, then have the PC's protecting god let him know the outcome (usually through dream sequence or herald). So something like PC Bob is a good guy who reguarly saves villages from evil cultists, Evil God "Jim the Evil" does like that so he tries to kill him, Good God "Eric the Good" stops him and says hey now i like Bob and i know an all out war with you would be silly over one follower, lets make a deal over Bobs soul, and then they hash out some sort of regional area of opperation deal or something like that, now this is oviously for Lawful gods. or B. The opposing God "Jim the Chaotic Evil" or i guess for your villain "Jim the Chaotic Good" sends out an avatar or herald to just throw down some heat on the villain, if he lives he gets to continue on his less then merry path for another random period of time. If NPC Jack (Evil Jack) is doing something that really threatens the gods most likely all the gods are going to go against him, even the evil ones, are going to try to stop him. I forget where i saw this, probably in either faiths and pantheons or deities and demigods, but the gods really dont like it when mortals screw with divine order, if a PC (or NPC) is trying to become a god or kill a god s/he had better be damn well protected cause they would all come after him/her. But this is just what i do, i tend to run my gods way more lawful then they should be. Hell in my game Jubilex is Lawful (its a high magic world and sucker got cursed with a higher degree of perseption and intelligence). But thats the great thing about gods, they are so chalked full of flavor and really can be manipulated to whatever means you need. Hope this helped, i just started rambling there in the middle, sorry.
Calmar 08-05-07, 06:00 PM	Why don't the gots prevent any evil? - Because it does not work that way. Anyway, if there is no life on the whole material plane (instead of 'just' a planet), the outer planes get into trouble, too. Your villain should not worry about the gods and rather think about a good way to oppose the *entire* multiverse. ;) I don't know on which scale your game works, but maybe your evil should annihilate one planet the heroes are on first. Also, you simply say that he employs some form of epic magic to block deific (sp?) powers or that he has found a way to destroy the life force of the gods, rendering them unable to act against him. :)