Seemingly Benign Worshipers of Dispater

[DungeonmasterCal]

About to run an adventure or two in a city of scholars and sages who worship Dispater. Outwardly they don't look like the stereotypical evil types, just peaceful philosophers and students.

I know evil is often in the eye of the beholder, but I'm welcome to suggestions about how to run such a thing as this without making it too obvious they do worship an evil being yet don't see him as such.

[MageHunter]

Such a place like that would be very clean. I imagine it as being rather civil as well. Nothing is going on, all the neighbors are kind to each other and happy.

Sadly, the dungeons beneath filled with nonconformists is anything but. An under city filled with slaves cruelly governed out of sight.

[Scrapper]

Said worshippers might not need to be evil, but could be Lawful Neutral, simply focused on a lawful environment and society, assuming I'm thinking of the same devil.

[DungeonmasterCal]

MageHunter wrote:

Such a place like that would be very clean. I imagine it as being rather civil as well. Nothing is going on, all the neighbors are kind to each other and happy.

Sadly, the dungeons beneath filled with nonconformists is anything but. An under city filled with slaves cruelly governed out of sight.

That's a great idea. The dungeons was something that I should've thought of but they just didn't occur to me. That's perfect. Thanks!

[DungeonmasterCal]

Scrapper wrote:

Said worshippers might not need to be evil, but could be Lawful Neutral, simply focused on a lawful environment and society, assuming I'm thinking of the same devil.

I don't have "The Book of the Damned" handy at the moment but I'm pretty sure they can be. Nice catch! That one didn't occur to me, either. I've had a pretty exhausting weekend and the gears aren't running too smoothly.

Thanks!

[GM Rednal]

Yeah, most people worshiping divine things can be up to 1 alignment step away, and if their HD is low, they don't even detect to sensor spells.

For that matter, evil doesn't have to be "kick every puppy and burn every orphanage". One of Dispater's areas of concerns is cities - so a bit of stuff along the lines of "we have firm order in this town to help protect us from <plausible nearby threat>" won't raise too many concerns among visitors as long as the guards aren't overly harsh.

[DungeonmasterCal]

That's a great point. I firmly believe that evil isn't all about just burning and pillaging, which is great fun and all, but that isn't really productive.. lol