A player of mine wanted to play a heretical cultist of Yog-Sothoth in my RotRL campaign, and I decided to allow it (without confirming whether his character's interpretation is correct). Basically, the character believes that, as "the Key and the Gate," Yog-Sothoth is actually the entity keeping the rest of the Outer Things at bay. When YS weakens, the influence of the others grows, and vice versa. So the character is CN, with CG leanings, a burglar who sees it as a divine blessing when things come unlocked (and thus an act of worship to unlock them) who actually wants to keep the rest of the "pantheon" at bay. (Although he's okay with aberrations, figuring if they are here, it is with YS's blessing.)
Now obviously, this isn't the normal belief structure of a cultist of YS, but it does make me question... because while being listed in Faiths of Corruption (pg. 19-21), about half of the 9 listed Elder Gods are not actually considered evil. Specifically, Azathoth, Bokrug, Mhar, and Yog-Sothoth are Chaotic Neutral.
(Incidentally, Mhar is one of the few beings to offer both the Earth and Fire domains, making it a great choice for a troll cleric with Diehard as an opponent... but that's another matter.)
So my question is, what would a nonevil (and possibly even CG) cultist of one of these four believe?
The Chaotic Evil thing can be debated, some see them as evil due to their alien nature among other reason. Also they're not really Elder Gods, they're in the category of Outer Gods. Cultist of Yog-Sothoth come from all walks of life, a Cleric of Yog-Sothoth might spend years in the ruins where his masters 'brothers' tried forcing their way through.
Yog-Sothoth is the Gate, Yog-Sothoth is the Key, He is Future, Past, and Present all in One. He knows where the Old Ones once tread and where they were sealed, and he knows when they shall come back into the realm.
So a CG or CN Cultist of Yog-Sothoth might take it upon himself to prevent the summoning of the Great Old Ones or prevent the thinning of the barriers where the Outer Gods lie.The Cultist of Yog-Sothoth in stories are known as occultist and sorcerers who know the lore to summon up their masters and when the stars are not aligned and the time is not nigh they know the summoning will go wrong. Your 'abomination' might be a tumor fmiliar if you are a alchemist or some sort of creature bred from horrors unknown.
Bokrug is interesting since he is a Great Old One on the plane of dreams or Leng, his cultist are 'infected' by his spawn you you may see his ilk slowly gathering at a place deemed as 'sacred' possibly a pool acting as a gate to the realm of dreams. I dont see how they would be good, at best they'd be neutral.
Azathoth, Daemon Sultan and to my Numerian Engineer the Chaos Engine, primal chaos superior to the Maelstrom but far refined he uses it to power his devices unlike the rest of the League. Azathoth stirs in his endless slumber and in his wake chaos is born. It is said the Shory were able harness Azathoths chaos to fuel their flying cities.
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I've also always assumed since 3.5 that Shub-Niggurath was CN as well with her cult flipping from CE-CG depending on interpretation since at the end of the day she is really just fertility incarnate asking for breeding and children eternal. Also it annoys the crap out of me that you couldn't have druid followers of her as that CE removes her from that whole one step off idea. Now as for the others in my campaign Bokrug serves as the deity of the lizard folk and quite a few reptilian races with him speaking to his clerics in their dreams, as for yog he is currently the god of the BBEG and his PC sister hunting him down. In mine I usually look at them as CN since the big 3 (Azathoth, Shub, and Yog) are less about malevolence and more the physical form of 3 basic concepts of our universe birth, death, and time which are not inherently good or evil so your player should be fine. Now Nyartholtep... he on the other hand actively seeks to destroy and corrupt mankind through his work and is evil, their is no gift from him that doesn't bite it's user in the ass later.
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Also it annoys the crap out of me that you couldn't have druid followers of her as that CE removes her from that whole one step off idea.
Wait, what? Why are druids forced to worship a deity within one step of their alignment? Only clerics are bound by that right?
And if I've massively overlooked something and they can only worship a god one step from their alignment then a NE druid could still worship S-N.
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I've always taken that as the case with druids if for no other reason then that druids like others would look for gods close to their own alignments and that wouldn't encourage them to stray too far from their alignment requirements. One of the things thats always made me wonder since they speak of druidic cults to Shub-Niggurath and demon lords who are listed as CE which means most of these druidic followers are probably CE which should negate their ability to cast spells as they've fallen off their neutral bent.
Going with the one-step rule, however, you'd end up with both Chaotic Neutral cults and Neutral Evil cults, druid-wise. The best part is that these cults would - in most cases - strongly tend to oppose each other, even going so far as to actively destroy the "heretics" in the other cults. Which works will with a chaotic evil base.
(Though I'd still like some more to be non-evil, and Desna to be one of them.)
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Yeah but then that would mean that you could end up with more NE cults or CN cults not CE cults. For that matter though i absolutely love the daemons as written now I have no clue how they would get druid followers while demons seem to be like perfect options for druids as they come off as nature left to run wild without anything stopping them which seems perfect for druidism.
Yeah but then that would mean that you could end up with more NE cults or CN cults not CE cults. For that matter though i absolutely love the daemons as written now I have no clue how they would get druid followers while demons seem to be like perfect options for druids as they come off as nature left to run wild without anything stopping them which seems perfect for druidism.
Sorry, I think you missed the point of my previous post.
Yes, you would, naturally get more druidic CN and NE cults than CE cults (because of druids' oaths and such), and those cults, due to opposing alignments would tend to oppose each other as heretics. But the fact that a demon (who is CE) has people murdering and killing each other in it's name would delight said demon. This is a demon's bread and butter.
I get the impression that the Old Ones also tend to have a... taste for sacrificial offerings... of their own people. So that would fit in nicely in the above scenarios as well. (Daemons too, for that matter, but that really doesn't have much bearing here.)
As far as "normal" cults of demons and CE outer gods, you'd probably have more CE than anything else. Sure a druids could worship them, but druids aren't the most populous people group anyway, and, combined with the fact that most of what a demon lord or outer god (regardless of alignment) "preaches" is completely incompatible with druidic ways, and they tend to lack as strong an over-all presence as the gods (otherwise, you'd have them as more "normally" worshipped gods) you're not going to have all that many cults of them in the first place.
Keep in mind that devils, daemons, and demons are generally seen as completely incompatible with nature and are often the cause of warps and blights simply due to being there - and the Outer gods even more so. It's the crazed sects of druids indeed that worships one of these very terrible entities in the first place (even though "crazed" does not equate to "evil".) So, you know, most cults will be in population centers more than deep wilderness, or if they are in the wilderness, the druids will oppose them, most of the time.