What's a good concept for an evil-aligned 'Heaven'?

I can see someone following an evil god and face its hell in exchange for power in this life.
But that's not what you're looking for, right?

You can evilify Odin. I mean, a great hall full of pirates, reavers and marauders who just party hard and fight forever? orcs and gnolls would love that shit

Set is not, however, a god to be ignored or avoided; he has a positive role where he is employed by Ra on his solar boat to repel the serpent of Chaos Apep.[2] Set had a vital role as a reconciled combatant.[2] He was lord of the red (desert) land where he was the balance to Horus' role as lord of the black (soil) land.[2]\

Just stop using Alignments, they are for babbys.

Greek Underworld is governed by evil god and every person will end up here unless he ascends to godhood. It's a grim boring place lacking any pleasures of the world of the living.

you're a mature adult. we get it.

There is nothing more trite or flimsy than diabolical "Gods of Evil".

Why would such an entity even exist, and moreover who would ever "worship" such a thing aside from some total psychotic?

Even historical "Devil Worship" is based off of persecution of ancient pagan gods, until you get to more recent centuries where it's just dorks trying to appear edgy and get laid.

>Greek Underworld is governed by evil god and
You dun' goofed.

fvck me, that comic is great

I mean, you have shit like Apep and Fenris, but those are just immortal threatening monsters and beasts, recognized but not worshipped.

Take a page from Greek mythology: Olympus is ruled by the Gods, who are complete dicks and toy with the lives of Mortals. By trickery, they cast down the Titans at the dawn of history and took their place despite the Titans being much stronger. The Titans aren't perfect, they ruled the Earth when humans were simple club-wielding primitives and viewed us as little better than animals with the execption of the Prometheus stand-in who taught us the secret of Fire even after the victorious gods proclaimed it theirs alone, but they're way less needlessly assholish. This is especially true now that we have things like metal weapons and huge armies, given that if they and their legions of monsters and giants are freed as creatures of the Earth they'll have to live on the ground with the rest of us instead of darting to and fro from unreachable celestial palaces to fuck with us for their own amusement, and could potentially be killed with a massive enough army and powerful enough magic.

Exactly; the Greek Mythos isn't a struggle of Good vs Evil, it's a generational conflict with divine children ever trying to supplant their elders.

He was considered evil by humans because he took them to his shitty realm from the happy upperworld and almost never shown mercy. Greeks never used his name to avoid his attention and all names of Hades are nicknames like 'unseen one' or 'wealthy'.

Idjit has shame

Hades was never considered evil. He was the lord of the underworld PERIOD, the only people who didn't end up there were the over-achievers who earned the reward of the Elysium fields.

All this "Hades is evil" shit is just game shit you've read, or Disney Cartoons.

Gonna need some citation on that, because I have NEVER seen any text refer to Hades being perceived or spoken of as evil.

user, he was considered evil because he did evil things. Evil god and god of evil are two different things. Hades was the former.

Hades got assigned the role of the keeper of the Underworld realm by a draw of lots.
He was Zeus' chill brother and ally in his titanwar.

Practically everyone ended up in the Underworld, it was literally the place where you went when you died, it wasn't a Hell or a punishment. The only way you DIDN'T go there was if Zeus rewarded you by upraising you to an eternal reward, it wasn't something you got for being "good".

Personally, I want to see a good guy faction worshiping the Jötnar. Most of the Norse Gods were dicks, and Fenrir and the Frost Giants at least seemed pretty alright. Sucks that the enemy get Freyja and all the Valkyries, but invoking Jörmungand before a naval battle sounds boss as fuck.

Hades did nothing more evil than Zeus, Apollo or Poseidon. By the way, Ares wasn't considered an "evil god" either.

You should read some mythology that isn't out of a game sourcebook.

>"Feared and loathed, Hades embodied the inexorable finality of death: "Why do we loathe Hades more than any god, if not because he is so adamantine and unyielding?" The rhetorical question is Agamemnon's.[34] He was not, however, an evil god, for although he was stern, cruel, and unpitying, he was still just. Hades ruled the Underworld and was therefore most often associated with death and feared by men, but he was not Death itself — the actual embodiment of Death was Thanatos."

Your point is? They were all asshole gods besides Apollo. Ares freed Thanatos because he was bored without death.

>he did evil things
but he didnt.
Hades was lord of the land of the dead.
He didn't DO death. He didn't even BRING the souls to his realm. There were other minor gods for that.
Now unless you have something resembling evidence...

>Most of the Norse Gods were dick
unlike the greek gods, they were mostly dicks to each other and not to humans.
Worshiping the Jotuns would be like worshiping the earthquakes and avalanches. Gods of Natural disasters, basically.

>Generally speaking, most settings have it such that good guys go to Heaven, baddies get chucked into hell, but by that logic, you'd think non-demonic, evil gods would have fewer believers if your promised reward was getting a pitchfork up your arse for all eternity.

But that's wrong. You go to hell because the good gods (or at least the chief god) decided to throw you in there as punishment not because you genuinely like this place or the bad gods. The only reason you would risk it is if you intend to somehow dodge that fate such as becoming a lich or something.

Are we still storytiming this comic? Or is it done? Because its quite an amusing little read so far.

EXACTLY.
The pantheon are filled with varying degrees of assholes, just like people.
None of them are EVIL except in game sourcebooks. Because their cartoonish "Alignment System" requires Evil Gods.

>Kali's earliest appearance is that of a destroyer principally of evil forces. She is the goddess of one of the four subcategories of the Kulamārga, a category of tantric Saivism.[2] Over time, she has been worshipped by devotional movements and tantric sects variously as the Divine Mother, Mother of the Universe, Adi Shakti, or Adi Parashakti.[3][4][5] Shakta Hindu and Tantric sects additionally worship her as the ultimate reality or Brahman.[6] She is also seen as divine protector and the one who bestows moksha, or liberation.[3] Kali is often portrayed standing or dancing on her consort, the Hindu god Shiva, who lies calm and prostrate beneath her. Kali is worshipped by Hindus throughout India.[7]

I actually made a priest of Jormungandr a BBEG in my campaign. He was forever barred from Valhalla after insulting Odin so he took up worshipping spawn of Loki out of spite.

One can hardly fault getting the wrong impression about Kali though.

Even among Hindu gods she's pretty wild looking.

The Underworld was however kind of divided into subsections. Regular schmoozes ended up in regular grey Hades, if you were a big-shot hero, you went to Elysium, and if you were on Olympus' shit-list, it's Tartarus for you.

Of course it varies wildly with what sources you read, but it's seems even the Greeks had an idea of the Reward in the Afterlife, even if it wasn't as clear cut as Heaven/Hell.

what powers did he get from that?

Great, he worships a big snake that chills at the bottom of the ocean waiting for Ragnarok.

That sure showed Odin.

>The only thing that satisfies Kali is literally walking over man.
She was the original tumblrina.

you're lucky she's wearing the arm-skirt today and not the dick-skirt

Quote from Hades in the Tv series Hercules: The Legendary Journeys:
>People forget, Hercules. I am lord of Hades and Tartarus, but also of Elysium.

Not important but interesting. sort of "I am heaven and hell, thing

Ability to cast powerful curses and influence minds, superhuman strength, near-immortality..
Also the ability to summon giant sea serpents (my players just managed to kill one on the last game).

All that for the small price of feeding his own children to the serpent (in addition to 'regular' human sacrifice) every now and then.

It doesnt just lie in the ocean. It IS the BORDER of the physical world. You can get some metaphysical mystic shit outta that!

Yes. 99.999% ended up in Hades, Elysium was a special resort for the greatest heroes or people who generally got on Zeus' approved list.

Tartarus started out in the early myths as the prison of the Giants and the other uncontrollable monsters. It only became a place for Ironic Punishment in later stories. It was also never ruled over by Evil Gods, it was a place Zeus sent you to suffer.

If everyone that was judged as evil by the good gods automatically went straight to Hell, there's no reason guys like, say, Bane or Shar, would be as popular as they are. It's not like every evil cleric's endgoal is reaching Lichdom.

That's a rather ridiculous source for anything.

If we assume "evil-aligned" as in the D&D alignment system, then the sort of evil afterlife you'd get would be based on your god's specific alignment vis a vis law and chaos, as well as their own personality.

But, for a start, let's assume a smart evil god. In the alignment system good is generally defined by selflessness and a pleasure in seeing peace, health, happiness, etc., while evil is defined by selfishness and a pleasure in seeing conflict, pain, misery, and so on. If a good character and an evil character fight in the same war on the same side then the good character regrets the pain and death inflicted on everyone including his enemies, but wants to help people or to prevent greater harm for everyone, while the evil character doesn't give a shit about helping anyone but themselves or their personal friends but likes seeing their enemies ruined and suffering. So, the reason evil gods generally don't have great afterlives is that they're dicks.

However, evil doesn't mean emotionless. You could get an evil knight who genuinely loves his country and his king, but if he vindictively slaughters anyone who's ever slighted his nation, ruthlessly genocides nearby peoples to free their resources for use by his own people, and tortures anyone who could know anything to benefit his kingdom, then the fact that he feels love doesn't mean he's not evil. So, you could have an evil god who sincerely loves his followers, maybe who champions a specific race or other group, and who rewards them in the afterlife. Or they might have a strong attachment to keeping their word, and so would provide a good afterlife to anyone to whom the promise of such had been made.

Aside that possibility, you could also go for a very practical, intelligent evil god. If they need followers and giving a decent afterlife gets them, then they would, but in such a case there probably wouldn't be a lot of energy or effort put into said afterlife - the god has better things to do.

How did giant but overall mundane snake grant him these powers?

Ridiculous for almost anything - it's awesome source for centaur lore.

Paladins of Kali might be fun.

>In the alignment system good is generally defined by selflessness and a pleasure in seeing peace, health, happiness, etc., while evil is defined by selfishness and a pleasure in seeing conflict, pain, misery, and so on.

Except for all the "good" Gods who pursue conflicts and find peacefulness to be laziness on their follower's part.

You can have antagonistic rival gods without any of them being Snidely Whiplash.

Not a source. just something we can consider.

That would be an interesting look at priorities. Good deities focus on eventualities and the distant future, evil entities focus on the Immediate.

Like, say, a Paladin gets tired of his god urging him for patience and hope while orcs ravage the countryside, and converts to the faith of MORGUL THE BLACK, who promises him the strength of ten men and a really badass sword.

And if he dies, he'll get a slightly discount version of Heaven, where all the angels wear 5-copper robes and play off-tune harps.

well after convincing the lore police to leave my house....

You know that episode of the twilight zone where the dude dies and goes to that casino where he just keeps winning and it all becomes pointless? It'd be like that, bad people who goto hell should recieve all the earthly htings they want whenever they want, until the finest wines taste of nothing and the feasts become nothing, evil people are atttracted towards this because the nature of evil is to be self serving in order to get stuff you want during your mortal life

Typically, evil gods either offer their followers mortal power/rewards, or are worshipped in fear. I would think those who please their gods still go to their respective Hell, but either get ignored or employed instead of chucked in the rending pits.

There's the Thuggees, but they're more clerics who multiclass as rogues than Paladins.

It's not that mundane in our game?

And some of that is just an extension/ upgrade of the seidr powers he had before (him learning magic as a man was one of the things that offended Odin in the first place) - now supercharged by the power of the Midgaard Serpent

"I'll hold his arms!"
"I'll strangle him!"
"I'll...tickle him gently"

>(him learning magic as a man was one of the things that offended Odin in the first place)
But Odin learned Seid too and was the god of seidmen.

>Typically, evil gods either offer their followers mortal power/rewards
Typically in fantasy material like games and cartoons.
In actual ancient mythology, men worshiped and placated various divine powers to receive blessings or avoid wrath, and the "Evil God" were just repellent monsters that would bring about the End Times, or eat the Moon or other such calamities, which were prevented by the Gods.

Which is rather more logical, in a mythological sense.

Abandon the Alignment system; and see how well this works. It really only facilitates Edgelords who want justification for playing creeps that the Heroes should crush, "But I'm just playin my Alignment", and people who want to be Dicks playing Lawful Pushy.

Shows what you know, Apollo was a god of plagues as well and was pretty dickish to a fair few people - zeus made him mortal for his crimes more than once

is this the same artist that did everything for Glorantha?

>tfw playing in a gnostic setting

It's these guys.
From a never-finished comic limited series.

It was one of those "I HAVE THE POWER OF GODS" hubris things.

The second insult was inhospitability. Denying a one-eyed traveller is a BAD idea, as you know. And being drunk when you do it is no excuse

I guess my point is; you can use whatever logic you want for "Evil Gods", because there's no historical basis for them being worshiped by humans, it's all made up fantasy storytelling.

So trying to apply logic to them is pointless.

oh yeah, ok. Carry on.

That seems like a really terrible gamble. Paladins get a 100% rate of a cushy afterlife, Blackguards have to deal with a 99% chance of becoming a demon's buttbuddy for all time, with a 1% chance of turning into said demon.

For ever Sauron or Voldemort, there's going to be hundreds of regular stormtrooper-level minions in the local evil church. Do they pray they get lucky?

Do whatever you want.

As a question, what separates a non-Evil God from an "Evil" God?
Tyranny?
Because the followers of Odin raided for slaves, the followers of Zeus were well known as slavers....what constitutes being an Evil God?

Saying "Mwahahahaha" too much or having a pointy beard?

I don't know about that. You can have quite a lot of fun playing around with fantasy tropes. Planescape practically trives off that.

And Paladins are a terrible example to use, as they are derivatives of the Arthurian myths, where there was generally God and a whole bunch of Godless evil blokes.

Blackguards are just some shit Larry Elmore or somebody pulled from their ass, they have no precedence. Perilous Knights were just these guys who were dickish.

Being evil is about being powerfull NOW HERE MUCH.

There is a reason guys are noted to have little clerics not being mad necromancers, and even said guys try their best to keep themself together as lich on this side of eternity.

Evil gods, plausible, needed for every manihean.

But their cults, apart for fausty sellouts? Why?

Planescape presumes almost by necessity that the Gods have no real connection to or need of Humanity. Otherwise you have one group residing in paradises that everyone would want to live in; and doing so wouldn't be that hard against the possibility of Eternal Reward....
And then some "Evil Gods" living in loathsome shitholes that even crazy people would avoid like the plague, but are still worshiped for No Raisin and are equally powerful "because balance" or some shit.
I really don't care for Planescape. That sort of thing is generally for people lacking the imagination to run good High Level games and simply turn their campaign into Diablo III.

Which frankly gets dull, and begs the question, "Why am I not just playing Diablo III".

Why are you so wrong?

Seriously, you've made several major mistakes and you clearly don't know a thing about the setting.

>Being evil is about being powerfull NOW HERE MUCH.
But WHY? You have benevolent deities offering Eternal bliss in exchange for "just not being a dick too much". Weighed against being a super-dick for as long as you can stay alive against all the other rival super-dicks and good people banding together to end your shit.

Sounds like a stupid plan. People really only seek Immortality on Earth when Eternal Reward seems uncertain or unknown, not when Heaven is a well-known place.

40k has an interesting spin on it
>people worship the Chaos Gods either to gain their favor or because they are corrupted, even if they started of with noble goals or for being naive/ignorant
>the vast majority of them get almost nothing out of it, only small rewards and only serve as cannon fodder/tools for the actual champions of Chaos
>most likely there is no actual afterlife for them, their souls only empower their patron
>most of the champions are already powerful and exceptional warlords, politicians, psykers, soldiers or leaders
>they receive actual rewards and true power is granted to them, so far as they continioue to serve their patron
>almost all of them have a single goal - amass as much power as possible and ultimately become a Daemon Prince of their patron
>if they fail, there is most likely no actual afterlife for them, their soul just empowers their god and presumably doesn't get tortured for all eternity
>if they displease their god then they either become a mindless Chaos Spawn or their soul gets snatched and tortured
>even becoming a Daemon Prince isn't that great, you gain massive powers, but now you are completely enslaved to your god, fighting in the Warp for him
>sometimes you will actually manage to do your own thing in the real world, but all to expand the power of your patron

Well, in say, Warhammer, Chaos does appeal to all sorts of primal urges, and the Hods don't generally have direct motivations aside from general 'Kill in my name, but don't do this thing' shenanigans.

It sort of helps that Norscans are brutish barbarian types, and Imperial converts tend to look more like they're under mind control, rather than having been convinced by preppy servants.

Isnt god evil by default? You can be pure believer and go to heaven and there you become an angel, conductor of Gods will, so occasionally you go back to earth to make stuff gods want. Spreading aids and cancer, engineering massive nuclear meldowns, car crashes, hijacking plains into tall buildings. Your know, for people inspirations + church visitors go up after disasters. Your also can blow yourself up in undeground while sreaming praise to some other god.

I know that the towns and main city of Sigil are "Made to Work" by the Queen of Invincible Plot Device. I'm saying that the Outer Planes themselves wouldn't logically work, because the Lower Planes wouldn't attract "followers", and the Law and Chaos planes are just too alien.

So you really just end up with a lot of weird locations filled with Supernaturals all adhering to a section of the Alignment Wheel, which is frankly pretty one-dimensional.
Oh and you have the whole "Demons and Angels drinking in bars" schtick, which is just cornball trope subversion.

Violent Gods make sense, Pitiless Gods, Vindictive Gods, Subversive Gods....

Evil Gods do not make sense outside of a Fantasy trope.
"These guys are worshiping EVIL" is something constructed by pic related.

Ye ancient pantheons generally were fairly chill towards even other pantheons, whether they be Roman, Egyptian or whatever.

You've made so many mistakes and misunderstandings that I really can't correct them in a single post. You don't know what you're talking about in the slightest, don't understand the role or nature of the Lady or the Planes themselves.

There are valid criticisms of the setting, but you haven't made any because you don't actually know a thing about it. If you want to understand why people like the setting, go and actually read up on it. And if you want to shit on it, then either learn something about what you're talking about or shut up.

For good or for ill, Planescape simply does not work on human morality or ethics.

This can even hold up in-universe when one considers that humans comprise only a diminutive minority in the Prime Material Plane. Sapient creatures' collective morality and ethics shape the Outer Planes, and human morality and ethics are "outvoted" by every other race's.

This is why, for instance, Acheron is predominantly the domain of the goblinoid and orc gods.

Oh god, I'd forgotten how terrifying Pope Sheev could look.

Correct or shut the hell up, you pretentious autist.
No one wants to read your 50 word "No UR WRONG"

Yes, which is based on certain races being primarily "X Alignment", which in itself is rather insultingly simplistic.

What if you're good aligned, would being killed by evil aligned one prevent you from getting to your good afterlife? That would have some rough repercussions to the setting.

All according to specific regional beliefs and stories that vary and contradict wildly. Apollo is one of the least dickish gods among asshole gods.

I dislike alignment, and my own takes on Planescape actually do away with it for the most part by assigning a set of seventeen "cosmic principles" for each of the Outer Planes.

Still, it is hardly unthinkable that there are many races of the Prime Material Plane whose consciences are arranged in such a way that their morality and ethics are what humans would consider evil and/or self-destructive.

Countless goblinoids and orcs willingly die in their gods' names to wage grueling, pointless war in Acheron. To humans, this is nonsensical and self-destructive, but to those goblinoids and orcs, it might just be their heaven.

1. The powers have a desperate need for humanity/mortal followers. The gods are powered by faith, and in the end ultimately composed of distillations of the souls of their worshippers.

2. Evil gods are worshipped for extremely valid reasons - they can help give people immediate temporal power, they condone and endorse a large number of things which feel good despite the suffering they inflict, and their realms often have valuable, useful or enticing features. Though she isn't a power, Malcanthet's home in the Abyss is actually the kind of place that a hell of a lot of people will want to go visit.

3. Planescape is a setting which actively fights against the idea of being a simple murderhobo simulator. The setting has multiple mechanics designed to encourage resolution of conflict through dialogue or alternatives to fighting, and the various planar conditions can make even surviving a challenge.

4. Planescape can be run from 1-20 and doesn't require being high-level at all.

5. The Gate-Towns aren't made to work by the Lady at all, and have no relation to her whatsoever. Sigil is protected by the Lady due to it's unique role in the cosmos, and to explain why any number of exceedingly powerful individuals haven't taken over or destroyed the place already.

6. The Lower Planes attract followers because they can offer real rewards and prizes, as well as providing a space for people to indulge in behaviors that other people might not enjoy. Saying that the Lower Planes wouldn't attract followers is like saying that everyone in the real world would be a perfectly virtuous and moral person.

7. There's a huge amount of variety in the various outsiders and how they view the world, and the various alignment planes are incredibly diverse even within themselves. There are multiple Paths up the slopes of Mount Celestia, and there are disagreements and conflicts between the denizens.

>Countless goblinoids and orcs willingly die in their gods' names to wage grueling, pointless war in Acheron. To humans, this is nonsensical and self-destructive,

Actually, that's the main ethos of the "Lawful Good" worshipers of Odin; to die in battle and participate in endless battles in preparation for Ragnarok.

So why should Goblinoids be labeled "Evil" for it?

Odin isn't LG m8.

Cos they are not human.

It's early/late- he's CG, but the point stands.
Yes, which is silly in a universe where humans are vastly outnumbered, and oftentimes represent the minority among the heroic players.

It actually doesn't. Odin's followers have a very different motivation and follow a very different moral code to the goblinoids.

You really need to go and do some study if you want to talk about something - this is like walking into a conversation about christianity and saying that it's clearly false because it can't explain the actions or superpowers of Xenu.

I know Warhammer gets a lotta shit on neo-Veeky Forums, but it really nailed this. Roughly 99.9% of all Chaos followers are damned to eternal hellfire when they die, whether it be through their own incompetence or just plain shitty luck/the gods being dicks, but that remaining 0.01% of hardened, extraordinarily lucky badasses have all the cool shit they did recognized, and are rewarded with immortality and more power than even mufuggin' Greater Daemons in exchange for spending eternity doing even more of it. By that point your mind and personality have been so thoroughly skullfucked by your patron(s) that spreading sector-destroying plagues, committing genocide with your bare hands, doing whatever crazy shit you feel like at the moment, or assraping Eldar really is your own personal definition of Heaven.

Except Set role, like the one of most other egyptian gods , evolved during the 3000 years of ancient egyptian history. So yes at some point Set was an evil god, the greek didn't associate him with Typhon for nothing.

Odin and the Aesir and the Vanir live in Ysgard, the Outer Plane exactly opposite Acheron.

Acheron is a dark mirror of Ysgard. Ysgard focuses on glorious battle, personal achievements, and sportsmanlike (for all war can be "sportsmanlike") competition. Acheron is more about war for its own bloodthirsty sake, the unit over the faceless individual, and deeply unfair and arbitrary competition; this is perhaps why Thuldanin, its second layer, has a heavy focus on cutting-edge military hardware, which deemphasizes the individual and sharpens the horrors of war.