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I'm creating an alignment chart for the "gods" of a campaing I'm GM'ing, and I'm having a hard time finding a spot for a creature of Death.
This is my aligments chart
so far:
Anor
Justice
Lawful Good
Eathoraz
Clemency
Neutral Good
Remin Keri
Art
Chaotic Good
Tzidiuz Oroni
Death
Lawful Neutral
Ouruz-Ime
Time
True Neutral
Veleath
Hedonism
Chaotic Neutral
Udun
Power
Lawful Evil
Halke
Wrath
Chaotic Evil
So, as you can see, for me Death is neither good or evil, it is actually a law. Although not the only law, is the only creature with this aligment for my campaing.
The problem is that PC's aligned with Lawful Neutral might not always want to be Aligned with death. So there is also this other god like creature that was not meant to be in this list, as it is a minor spirit, that I also have:
Qainec
Resolution
Lawful Neutral
Qainec is a spirit of pure resolution. Qainec is not a unique being, but a actual "race" of spirits. So now I'm puzzled. Any help?
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In my opinion the God of Death has to be true neutral, I see no reason to attach death to law, I mean a lawful lich can try avoid the death same as a chaotic one.
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Just because you share an alignment doesn't mean you have to share a goal. Imagine a LE Warlord who wanted to rule a kingdom. He would have a lot to lose from a LE demon taking over the kingdom first. Same alignment - but not aligned.
I agree with LN for Death. He plays no favorites and he gets very cranky when people break the only law he cares about.
That is what I'm going for here! Hmmm... I think I'm gonna keep it that way and add Qainec as an option for lawful neutral PC's
I agree with LN for Death. He plays no favorites and he gets very cranky when people break the only law he cares about.
If there are in the setting a lot of sentient undead out there not being chased by death, I see no reason to believe the god of death is feeling cranky. In this case I go for the true neutral
On the contrary if in the setting the sentient undead are chased by the god of death or his worshipers then he would be lawful neutral.
Death comes for all. Death takes all, eventually. Death doesn't choose sides, holds grudges, or abides by requests. Death just is. It's usually the viewer's bias on the subject that places meager things like 'justification' and 'balance' to death.
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Death, like Batman, has all alignments and none.
You also can say that death has no order or plan to act, she takes poor and rich, child and old, etc. So from that perspective she sould be chaotic.
I prefer to see her as neutral since she comes to all creatures, even gods eventually.
Death varies quite a bit depending on your pantheon.
Our game uses old earth pantheons, and here's the breakdown we go with:
Babylonian: Nergal NE (God of the Underworld)
Celtic: Arawn LE (God of the Dead / "The Dark One")
Aztec/Mayan/Inca: Mictlantecuhtli LE (we roll all three into one pantheon) (God of Death)
Chinese: Yen-Wang-Yeh N (Judge of the Dead)
Egyptian: Anubis LG (Guardian of the Dead)
Egyptian: Nephthys CG (Goddess of Wealth and Protector of the Dead)
Egyptian: Osiris LG (God of Nature and the Dead)
Finnish: Louhi NE (Hostess of the Underworld)
Finnish: Tuonetar CN (Goddess of the Underworld)
Finnish: Tuoni CE (God of the Underworld)
Greek: Hades NE (God of the Underworld)
Indian: Yama LN (Judge of the Dead) (note that's India the country, not native american)
Norse: Hel (NE) (Goddess of Death)
We also have Japanese, Native American, and Australian Aborigine pantheons in our game, which don't have a directly analogous 'god of death.'
A link to how we do it:
Also, I might add, having spent so much time mapping real gods into dnd/Pathfinder archetypes, I am continually reminded how gaming nerds always seem to skip some of the most important gods, historically, when drawing up their lists:
Love,
Fertility,
Rain,
Sun,
Moon,
Artifice,
Hell dude, you don't even have a Nature god. Poor druids.
I suggest spending an hour on Wikipedia, picking some easy old pantheons that are well published such as Norse, Greek, and Sumerian, and websurfing through their gods making lists of what they cover, then trying to work them in to yours overtop of your existing gods. You have enough gods to do it, just need to expand their horizons some.
For instance, Fertility is like the A #1 thing period folks used to pray to. You could stick Fertility in with Eathoraz, Remin Keri, Tzidiuz, Oroni, Ouruz-Ime, or Veleath, and doing so would add some interesting complexities to each one.
Good luck. Drawing up the pantheon is one of the most important (and fun) things about homebrewing a campaign. I could spend hours on it.
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Babylonian: Nergal NE (God of the Underworld)
Celtic: Arawn LE (God of the Dead / "The Dark One")
Aztec/Mayan/Inca: Mictlantecuhtli LE (we roll all three into one pantheon) (God of Death)
Chinese: Yen-Wang-Yeh N (Judge of the Dead)
Egyptian: Anubis LG (Guardian of the Dead)
Egyptian: Nephthys CG (Goddess of Wealth and Protector of the Dead)
Egyptian: Osiris LG (God of Nature and the Dead)
Finnish: Louhi NE (Hostess of the Underworld)
Finnish: Tuonetar CN (Goddess of the Underworld)
Finnish: Tuoni CE (God of the Underworld)
Greek: Hades NE (God of the Underworld)
Indian: Yama LN (Judge of the Dead) (note that's India the country, not native american)
Norse: Hel (NE) (Goddess of Death)
See? Batman.
LN, Death doesnt care who you are, or what you did(N), but Death is unyielding in the fact that all will die(L)
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My homebrew's death goddess is LN, on account of her coming for everyone eventually, not liking people bucking that system, and keeping the life-death cycle running properly. Absolutely abhors undeath, regardless of their actual alignment. Actually, her working in absolutes is a part of her lawfulness. She Who Is Inevitible and all that.
In contrast, the god of creation is CN.
I see death gods as quite neutral or easily LN. They know what is inevitable, they care about the balance, and don't like people that break the rule of death following life, or life following death.
They can of course be spiced up as evil entities determined to mess everything up, that is easy. In fact one dm I know made it just so. Death was an evil force, and humans fought against it. I didn't agree, the truth and inevitability of everything is collapse and death, it is natural it is not evil. The guy really wanted the undead as the bad guys though, but they often didn't seem to have choice or free thought in the matter.
Dark souls sort of Zoroastrian world presents an interesting gaming world. Light is considered to be life, the gods mostly watch over and support this age of light. Death represents humanity and the dark. The dark and undeath will dominate in the next era, when the world of the humans defeat, end and drive out the gods. It will be dark, but humans will be in control, no longer fooled by the gods of light.
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persionally I find myself pulling from Morr in the warhammer fantasy and blending that with a few diffrent ideas. his realm of the dead being bezzare one of peace and inevitabilly for everyone good or evil.
he's good, but creepy, morbid, and kind, his priests (gardeners of Morr) even council the bereved and maintain places of rest within the empire and the world in all places but Norsca and the wastes.
except when the dead walk, morr is the kind of god whose paladin who wears jet black armor, never speaks, but will go into a haunted graveyard and chokeslam a vampire back into his coffin, stake him, bund him, and bury him. Then walk away having never said a word to the frightened villagers.
there's an entry of the Grand theologian (warhammer popey dude) calling on morr through his holy tome to whipe the floor with a millions vamperic/undead horde. (in pathfinder terms level 20 cleric casting mericle with a holy relic) he dragged all the mindless undead down, and killed the weak willed setiants. only the vampire lords were stong enough to survive the Call of Morr, and the imperial armies hunted most of them down.
Morr is not only god of death but also of god of dreams at the same time.
@J3Carlisle not all will die (of old age at least) like a lvl 20 wizard.
I vote for true neutral, death does not care, it's only there. Some pray to eat for years and it won't come any sooner, some are so afraid that they try to cheat it, and death does not try to prevent this.
On the other hand, do you really need a god of death? Depending on your campaign even gods can die eventually, and who would reap the god of death?
I would put it as something above gods, who doesn't even grant spells, he takes no sides when gods fight.
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Got a crazy idea. Death god, as chaotic good.
A well-meaning god that takes the truly suffering, offs them, relieves them of their pain a little bit sooner. So if you are starving and have given up, the god's agents are deployed to usher you along.
Ruined, defeated and your old life over, along comes a messenger "would you care to leave this all behind?"
Death, with somewhat of a conscience. Could have an assassination wing dedicated to knocking off tyrants and those who have sinned/betrayed greatly.
Death is indiscriminate, everything that lives, dies, no matter how good or evil they are, or how lawful or chaotic. It doesn't have any intentions of itself when it strikes, it just happens. Death should be true neutral unless it's about death for a specific purpose or out of specific intentions.
To add more to the chaotic good death god idea, the assassin wing perhaps never kills villains, oathbreakers and murderers, no, they maim the villain until they beg for death. Until they understand the importance of the act and wish to give up their meddling ways.
Clerics of this god also cannot create food and water or heal ailments, they can only offer death to release those who suffer.
Sometimes I feel like certain concepts need more than oen deity associated with them. You could have a god of tyranny (LE) and a god of justice (LG), and you could have a god of murder (CE) and a god of death (LN), etc.
Well... Pharasma is True Neutral, so I usually go with that.
Death is a natural thing, something that exists outside of the bounds of morality as mortals see it and is just one of the steps in the cycle of mortal existence, along with Life.
There's nothing bad, wrong, or good with Death, it just is.