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Ideas for slightly evil gods.

Box Vox

Box Vox

Location
The Bone Sea, South
Pronouns
He/Him
I want a few Ideas for evil gods, or at least slightly, and how they would work in a setting.

A few examples are a dark god of honor whose priests are knights working off an impossibly long list of rules, the medicine god is a crippled god being kept barely alive by their mad medicines, a god of justice who only acts when someone is falsely executed and so executes everyone who watched it, ect.

That sort of thing.
 
I once had an idea for a dark god that offered souls to a formerly soulless humanity, granting them an afterlife. Except it's not a very nice afterlife, and before gaining souls humanity was basically utopian in nature; just, rational, compassionate etc. Humanity wasn't cheated or deceived, just endarkened by its own choice in return for an afterlife. And the only way for a human to become a truly good person is to somehow lose their soul, and any form of afterlife.
 
from when I made a D&D Pantheon of Americana:

Madison, Goddess of Seduction, Lies, False Promises, and Propaganda

Alignment: NE

Domain: Trickery

Holy Symbol: a large yellow sales tag

The personification of Madison Avenue, Madison corrupts and seduces, undermining and opposing Superman(Truth and Justice: LG) and Blind Justice(equality of law: LN)
 
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Box Vox said:
A few examples are a dark god of honor whose priests are knights working off an impossibly long list of rules, the medicine god is a crippled god being kept barely alive by their mad medicines, a god of justice who only acts when someone is falsely executed and so executes everyone who watched it, ect.
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I'm not quite clear on what you're really looking for, here, because I'm not sure any of these would really count as "evil" in a moral sense, except for maybe the last one. The first one just has a very strict code of conduct to uphold, which is certainly difficult and demanding, but not evil unless the rules are contradictory and actively set his followers up to fail. The second one is kinda just a regular god of medicine with a really unpleasant medical condition of his own. The last one is arguably too indiscriminate in his punishments to count as a god of "righteous" vengeance, but even then he only acts in response to an injustice being committed and people actively standing by and doing nothing.

When I think "slightly evil god" I think more of something like, I don't know, a god of knowledge and copyright infringement. You know, collecting and freely distributing lore and secrets from anywhere and everywhere, with no consideration or respect for whether the source was willing to actually share their knowledge. So maybe you need to be a bit more specific there.
 
If it's evil gods, what occurs to me immediately are the Hindu disease goddesses? Oladevi who rules over cholera, Hariti and Sitala of smallpox. There's the new one as well: Corona Mata.

But calling them "evil" is a bit... I mean, there's a sliding scale where they are simultaneously the embodiment of the disease and also the one who takes it away, and those roles are a little blurry. So are you praying to them to save your kids from the disease, or is the prayer "please leave me alone" so they don't make you sick, it's kinda all of that at once.

I guess there's also a distinction between "Ares" from Greek myth and "Mars" from Roman, where Ares was the "bad" parts of war contrasted with Athena ruling over the "good"; so Ares was the god of confusion and anger and getting PTSD and stuff, whereas Athena was about glory and victory. So you prayed to Ares "please don't make things worse" and you prayed to Athena "please help us" when you were doing a war. Whereas Mars was much more a "soldier god", the Legions praying that the war would happen the way they planned, that kind of thing.

But anyway that would be my first pass at coming up with evil gods; ones basically doing a protection racket where normies pray "here's an offering, so leave me alone."
 
Evil Gods would be dependent on existing morality as a contrast, but Gods can't be purely Good or Evil because people are not purely good or evil. Gods are a manifestation of human belief and thought, we pour ourselves into them along with our understanding of surrounding reality. Divine beings embody skill and devotion, emotion and action, think of them as a patron Saint with far more juice in the battery. They look after their followers or see them as a tool, but there should always be a reason to follow them that can be tied to self-interest, even if that self-interest is benevolent such as helping others as a man of medicine! Remember that these deities are not real people. They are forces of nature and should act as such even with their own personality, they operate by rules that determine how they act and how they view the actions of the mortals.
 
A God of Evil who is themselves not all that evil if at all, and makes a point of sandbagging to avoid causing too much damage. They're just doing their job, fulfilling their role.
 
Do you already have Hating God? One, who doesn't love thier creation, but hate so much they unable to end it and would do everything to prolong thier suffering. After all, All Hating being works as good as All Loving one. 🤷‍♂️​
 
THE FIRST AND LAST LORD​

The ultimate personality of the Gods, and the unliving embodiment of authority. They are not God Supreme by age or strength, but by virtue of their ability as a great wisdom and organizer of the chaos that is reality. Through great efforts they negotiate and resolve the conflicts of the Gods, keeping them and their followers from destroying themselves or being dispersed by those who oppose the Gods and their cults. Some see them as the great civilizing force, bringing peace and prosperity where their ordained champions tread, each taking the title of Overlord in their own territory. But they are also the God of Slavery, and these Overlords bind those weaker than them wherever they go and recognize no masters. Any Overlord who even bows in mere respect will be abandoned by their God on the spot and marked for death by The Divine Majesty. As this God has their followers chain all others in order to gain favor, and sacrifice items of great wealth to them in ritual firepits, the followers of this God are deeply resented by all others, and a would-be aspirant Overlord is often dissuaded by those around them, by force if necessary.​
 
Would divine protection rackets count? "This is a grievous plague/misfortune/catastrophe; pray tome and I will alleviate it" while the sources of said evil are allowed to continue unhindered, because without disaster, there's no faith in the god of disasters.
 
Anakleptos, god of stealing important things like keys or wallets then returning them to the same spot a few hours or days later (after you've already checked there, multiple times).

Psammastica, goddess of putting sand and other hard inedible particles into your food.

Kopropedes, god of stepping in nasty substances.

Antemora, goddess of not remembering things until it is too late.

Sedalgos, god of sitting on sharp objects.
 
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Mad Bad Rabbit said:
Anakleptos, god of stealing important things like keys or wallets then returning them to the same spot a few hours or days later (after you've already checked there, multiple times).

Psammastica, goddess of putting sand and other hard inedible particles into your food.

Kopropedes, god of stepping in nasty substances.

Antemora, goddess of not remembering things until it is too late.

Sedalgos, god of sitting on sharp objects.
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This is gold. This is slightly evil.

Also, this counts too I think.
Cobalt-60 said:
Would divine protection rackets count? "This is a grievous plague/misfortune/catastrophe; pray tome and I will alleviate it" while the sources of said evil are allowed to continue unhindered, because without disaster, there's no faith in the god of disasters.
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I'll add one more for fun.
The stiched god, (INSERT NAME). The war in (Generic Fantasy Heaven) was great and terrible. So few gods were left. So, three gods brought the corpses of their brothers and sisters together, to do one simple thing. Stitch and stitch until they made a god. A false stumbling god of stitches.
 
I have a half-formed idea of a god whose power is derived from his worshippers having to make inconvenient sacrifices to him. Not sacrifices as in lives, rather he demands his followers just be... kind of miserable and uncomfortable.

His priests come up all sorts of ways to properly worship. It's hot outside? Wear a scratchy wool sweater all day. Put a rock in your shoe. Things like that. He feeds off discomfort.
 
The god of half-truths, who demands that people either lie about parts of things they answer or just only tell people part of what they need to know.
 
The god of unanswered prayers.

Specifically, one whose oracles say "You know that petition/secret prayer/dearest unspoken wish of your heart? Well, I heard it, and I can say for certain: you're not getting it." Hated by many, considered the only honest god by some.
 
Auraua Astutia,
Goddess of unbound creativity.
Granter of wishes.

Anything and and everything can and will be created (so long as it is interesting enough).
Finds herself muses amongst the artistic and inspired, plugs them (and their subconcious) into a wish engine, and then just lets rip.
Got a new idea for a continent? Sure- we'll boil up one of the previous ones.
Interesting new type of music? Christmas gift? Torture device? Architecture? Animal speices? We can make those!

Takes the form of a rolling boiling Auraura of constant change. Physically embodies themselves as a flighty shapeshifter, rolling and warping between the form of an axolotal, a multicoloured tree, a constellation, a song, a mountain, or a dancing puppet.

Technically, probably Chaotic Neutral? But also Chaotic neutral in the "Does not give a damn about the safety of others, and has no conception that she should".





Ryllabehk,
God of Boats.

Likes boats, and boat related activities A patron of fish, fishermen, and explorers.
Also, Fuck you land dwellers!
Has plans to convert the entire world into ocean, not so people will drown, but so that more people will live in boats. Refuses to accept or acknowledge that boats are made out of wood, and wood grows on land.







RAZDOTH THE UNHALLOWED
PHEONIX OF BLOOD
DEMON OF THE TWELFTH UNDERWORLD
(Also, possible Diety of Narcissism.)

And incredible vain and weak little dark god. Plans of world domination and subjugation. Evil and powerful enough to be a threat to humanoid characters within a thirty meter radius, but exceptionally weak when actually compared on a divine scale, and also *completely unaware of this fact*.
Currently possessing an evil lantern (The lantern was evil and cursed before they arrived, but they like the aesthetic, and it saves them the energy of actually having to curse anything).
They need servants to spread their cult, pour them into a more suitable vessel, etc etc, hence, upon meeting the players, rather than kill them, they will make their best attempt to subjugate them, using a mixture of threats, bribes, flattery, bullying, etc.
From time to time, they will succeed at finding someone stupid, arrogant, or weak willed enough to play along with their games... however their own short sightedness and inability to grasp the world will inevitably screw them over, leading to them being slapped down (either by a paladin or cleric of the light, or some other dark diety who will then make off with their power).

Liable to show up throughout a campaign at wildly different levels of power progression (Either close to their peak, as a serious threat, or recently cut down, as a wretched creature searching for a host to prey upon... or somewhere in between.)
 
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Andre Chaos said:
Do you already have Hating God? One, who doesn't love thier creation, but hate so much they unable to end it and would do everything to prolong thier suffering. After all, All Hating being works as good as All Loving one. 🤷‍♂️​
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This is terrifying, and well well beyond the description of "Slightly evil".
I have N-1 mouths, and I must scream.
 
Andre Chaos said:
Do you already have Hating God? One, who doesn't love thier creation, but hate so much they unable to end it and would do everything to prolong thier suffering. After all, All Hating being works as good as All Loving one. 🤷‍♂️​
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Kind of reminds me of "The Adversary", the Satan analogue in a novel I read who predated creation and found its existence agonizing, and so was trying to destroy the world to end their own suffering.​
 
The God Of The Unknown
More precisely, the god who embodies all the fear of the unknown.
 
Box Vox said:
I want a few Ideas for evil gods, or at least slightly, and how they would work in a setting.

A few examples are a dark god of honor whose priests are knights working off an impossibly long list of rules, the medicine god is a crippled god being kept barely alive by their mad medicines, a god of justice who only acts when someone is falsely executed and so executes everyone who watched it, ect.

That sort of thing.
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I am wanting to write a story where the main antagonist is a figure like Zuse. A pantheon of gods around what you could say is their leader. im thinking about what i could use for him tho i am not sure what i can use for this
 
Was God of all petty evils already mentioned?
 
The lazy Sun. Also known as the one who sleeps under the the ice.

The Antarctic tribes frequently tell how the howling of the winds just before spring sounds like "God Mom, Just five more days" in their native language.
Making too much sound among them will get you shushed, because the Sun will throw icy hail at sounds, then a glaciers.

They believe that other parts of the worlds have their own suns, who aren't this lazy.

The birds are her messengers, just like any other sun mother. And this is why hunters have a yearly gathering where they shout loudly at each other in order to wake up the sun and gain favor with their mother, while being far enough from attracting the Suns ire.

Andre Chaos said:
Was God of all petty evils already mentioned?
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I might have missed it, but I didn't see it in a quick skim.
 
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