God in Planescape (Please don't light me on fire)

One viewpoint I've seen is that some may perceive the various Good (and maybe some of the Neutral) deities in D&D to be simply different aspects of the One True God.

I will point out one thing, though.
Gary Gygax's multiverse is really built around the concept of metaphysical Balance (even though G.G. is a Christian himself). Neither Good nor Evil is dominant in this multiverse. If, say, an LG overgod were running the show, it would completely throw off the Balance aspect of the cosmology.

I know Factol Terrance is, but are there other examples where GU priests are LG?

Not to start some religious flame-war here, but canonically, the Yahweh God (we're talking Old Testament, right?) is about as far away from Lawful Good as you can get.

Chaotic Neutral or Lawful Neutral strikes me as much more appropriate.

Edit: In fact, some early Christian gnostic cults would have been quite happy to point out to you that Yahweh was Chaotic Evil, and Jesus was Lawful Good and totally kicked his ass. But yeah--Yahweh? Definitely not a Lawful Good kind of guy.

[moderator]As a note: Given the potentially sensitive nature of this topic, I would like all participants in this thread to keep in mind that we're all friends here. Keep it above the waist and civil so's I don't have to use my 'mommy voice'. [/moderator]

Here we go again! I don't think we got anywhere the LAST time this subject was broached, but here's my two cents. I'd make YHVH a Lawful Neutral Greater Power with Clerics of ANY Lawful alignment (Torqumada and other "Grand Inquisitor" types were DEFINITELY Lawful Evil, yet clearly served the Judeo/Christian God, whereas such individuals as Francis of Assisi were obviously Lawful Good, and a lot fell somewhere inbetween...) If you assume Christ to be true, then He and the Holy Spirit are considered part of the same God with YHVH and follow the same rules (even if they AREN'T real, Clerics of them still get spells because of their faith!) Helel the Lightbringer (aka Satan) should be Chaotic Neutral (not, as commonly assumed, EVIL... just in opposition to YHVH's rule); his Clerics would be any Chaotic alignment, including Good or Evil (thus explaining why he's thought of as Evil; he's just getting bad publicity because of the actions of his CE servants!)

Why do I have a feeling that this thread is not long for this world?

Well, canonically, we're dealing with a game where it's not evil to kill people. In which case, all of God's "Wrath of Fire" judgments are actually taken in the context that the Bible puts them in (i.e. the idea that they're just and good). That's not bringing in Rabbi Joshua Ben Joseph's (Jesus) reformist perspective on the matter.

Now, RL morality aside, the IMAGE of God that the religion is SUPPOSED to convey is that of a Divine and Just Lawgiver. It's why Zeus is Chaotic Good, in that he was still supposed to be a benevolent figure despite his rather whimsical behaviors.

See what I mean?

Frankly, for the sake of the argument I would like to request to my fellow posters to keep to the following views.

* Restrict this to the discussion of YVHS in a D&D context.

* The possible use for YVHS in a D&D game.

* No evangelizing (i.e. bringing distaste for RL tragedies or need to defend one's faith)

* Whether it's a good idea or not.

* What sort of characteristics would you so describe to the being.

In my case, I'd definitely go with the Paladine of Krynn Lawful Good stern Patriarch view with Jesus as an incarnation meant to invoke better feelings. I'd also stick with the LE View of Satan and explicitly stick with Asmodeus as that figure (though one might be tempted to go with the original Ed Greenwood story that Asmodeus overthrew Satan).

One should bear in mind that even in the stories of YVHS in the Old Testament, he was never a whimsical God. Chaotic Neutral is entirely inappropriate for him because his frequent divine wrath was always directly focused at people who broke the Covenant. Lawful Neutral might be an appropriate reaction, though I believe it respects the Mythological meaning more.

But yes, there have been numerous other religious views as well. A Gnostic YVHS is entirely irreconcilable with one that would be the God of Islam/Judaism/Christianity, however.

YVHS
Greater God

Alignment: Lawful Good
Portfolio: Christians, Creation, Jews, Muslims, Law
Domains: Creation, Law, Good, Healing
Favored Weapon: Quarterstaff

YHVS is one of the most powerful gods on the Prime Material Plane world of Earth and worshipped by entire continents as the only deity of their faith. Most of them do not even acknowledge that any others exist and his devotees are often quite shocked to find out that this not the case when they visit other realms.

Background: YVHS is a deity on Mount Celestia's Seventh Level and a fairly distant and removed one. Unlike most deities, YVHS refuses to be anthormorphized and instead communicates primarilly through his Archangel Proxies that ferry his will down to Solar Devas and so on down. When YHVS does appear to his worshippers, it's often through Communion spells with his priests or vast omens that grant the experience a powerful mystical feel.

YVHS choice to remain as distantly removed from his worshippers as he has is something that causes some clerics to be a bit confused about his nature. YVHS is a powerful Lawful force and believes this to be the ultimate way to achieve goodness within the Prime Material Plane. Curiously, there's some indication that the deity might be changing or decided to make a powerful statement against the Lawful excesses of his faith. One sect of his faith believes powerfully that a Neutral Good berk was an incarnation of his deity. This seems awfully peery to more traditional members of his clergy.

Overall, some things that are known about this faith are that it has a deep distaste for the Nine Hells. That's no surprise but it seems to take Asmodeus and his ilk more personally than any other group of Fiends in the cosmos. Clerics and Paladins of YVHS are expected to hunt down and destroy Devils above any other type of fiend in the cosmos. This extends to their worshippers and quite a few overzealous types have gone Harmonium on a bunch of innocent sods as a result.

Simultaneously, the Lords of the Nine have their own bone to pick with the Lawgiver. Dispater, Mammon, Belial, Baalzebul, and Asmodeus himself are all known to give large rewards to those who end up destroying the morality of his people or faithful. A favorite tactic of the Lords of the Nine is also to screw with THE LAW and the people's interpretation of it. This seems to honk off the Lawgiver more than anything since so much of his faith is based on prizing its immutability. Tell a YVHS worshipper something was lost in the translation and he'll probably stare at you blankly.

Portfolio: YVHS claims to have created the planet Earth and it's just possible he might have. His focus seems to be primarilly on the Law that he's created, the stewardship of the Earth, and the various peoples that he calls his own. Unlike most deities, he doesn't seem to have much of an agenda beyond promoting the moral fiber of his initiates. Because of the heavy emphasis on Law and his status as a removed god, a great number of sects within the religion. This, combined with a great deal of misunderstanding that has built up over the years, has made spellcasters to be fairly rare of the faith.

Maybe, on the other hand, I've always felt it was important to keep the perspective of modernity out of it. I'm a pacifist in Real life but D&D is very much a war game and it's difficult for me to see war as anything but a Chaotic Evil activity. Nevertheless, I'd be deranged if I didn't think that there were Lawful Good soldiers in WW2.

(Despite the fact they both civilians)

Morality changes.

Plus, when dealing with RL faiths, we also have to move past the fact that there's no one giving us a Holy Sign that "Miko the Paladin has Fallen! Don't trust her!"

Perhaps, there's varying schools of thought. I think most people are assuming that this is a "Mish-Mash" YHVS of Modern Scholastic thinking. I.e. that YHVS is the God of not only Jews but also Christians and Muslims.

While you could make an argument that Jesus and God were seperate incarnations in some manner, Allah is explicitly a God of Charity and Mercy as depicted. Certainly, in the context of the day he was a liberal entity despite being very clear on the legalities of what was expected of followers.

You could even argue he's the Middle Ground between Jesus' reformation prinicples and Yawhew's heavy handedness.

I've only read the book a couple of times but I'm pretty damn sure even the Ancient Jews were pretty damn clear on issues God never being particularly chaotic. The only time he ever threatened to break the Covenant, it was considered a *huge* deal.

A lot of the issue is perception, note I'm not necessarilly disagreeing with a great deal of God's commands being brutal.

Morality being distinctly different in today's society than from way back when.

I'd either divide Allah up into a separate niche or just claim that the monotheistic God never really seems to directly speak to masses, just individual prophets (Jesus, Muhammed, so on), and those prophets sometimes seem to have contradictory issues.

The vagueness could create an interesting enigma behind it all, especially when even the contradictory prophets are still getting priest spells.

Thinking about it, God could be Lawful Evil. He creates tons of laws to control his people, but he can break them as needed.
Also, the whole Tower of Babel thing, what was that all about God?

'TheSky' wrote:

Thinking about it, God could be Lawful Evil. He creates tons of laws to control his people, but he can break them as needed. Also, the whole Tower of Babel thing, what was that all about God?

A rightful and just punishment?

The whole idea behind the Tower of Babel is the gross arrogance of mankind. People attempting to set themselves above the Gods. Are we going to suggest that Yertle the Turtle gets an unfair wrap now?

I think the major issue we're going to have to deal with is the fact that any RL religion is going to have major elements that are culturally related but don't fit our comfy Modern Day Morality. It's like unilaterally declaring the Aztec, Carthagian, and Maya Gods evil.

Oh well.

Personally, I'd rather like to get away from the "God's Alignment" discussion. Instead, I'd like to discuss the possibilities of Story use for the deity in Planescape. How it might be interesting to treat him as just a Greater God rather than Overpower or fitting him into the Planescape cosmology. Especially with all the Angelic and Demonic myth that coats Planescape already.

I think that'd be a more satisfying conversation topic for us all.

You're welcome to use whatever alignment fits your perception for said discussion. Though for me, I'm sticking with Heavens and Hells meaning said places.

I really like the notion that he was a somewhat tyrannical Lawful Neutral deity toppled by one of his very own priests who pretty much took his place and became a Lawful Good/Neutral Good Deity. That can be seen as a little inflammatory, however; but I just like the essence of that story--it has a lot of vast potential (and it makes for interesting conversations, especially if your PCs know the Athar).

There's also an absolutely fascinating potential to make God the Convenant itself. Imagine--not so much a 'deity' as far as Planescape acknowledges deities, but a metaphysical being who manifests only as a deal made with a certain people, providing for them so long as they honor the rules of this Covenant.

That could get really wacky, though (but hey! I like wacky!).

Edit: In a way, I'd say think of the Covenant like an agreement with the Multiverse itself; something like a group of Fraternity members entering in a contract with existence (although an argument can be made that it's merely a face put on top of existence by the strength of their belief). That has a lot of really weird potential to it, and I'm not sure where it would go but it might be somewhere very interesting.

First off, please don't light me on fire. This is just another interpretation of YVHS. The way I see it, we're all assuming that YVHS would be as powerful in Planescape as we percive him to be here. But there a lot of other gods in Planescape, and the whole "I am the only God" thing might not make them too happy. Anyway, here's another quick writeup, just to compare to the other one.

YVHS
Intermediate Diety

Alignment: Lawful Good (Feel free to argue this one away)
Portfolio: Christians, Creation, Jews, Muslims, Law
Domains: Creation, Law, Good, Healing
Favored Weapon: Quarterstaff

YHVS is one of the most powerful gods on the Prime Material Plane world of Earth and worshipped by entire continents as the only deity of their faith. Most of them do not even acknowledge that any others exist, indeed forsaking other gods is one of the major tenements of their religion.

This one issue has probably done the most to prevent YHVS from becoming more popular in the planes. While many other clerics share a healthy respect for everything YHVS belives in, they are unwilling to forsake their own gods just to worship YHVS. Compounding this problem is that clerics of YHVS often refuse to accept other gods or their priests, occasionally even going so far as to lead crusades against these 'false' religions.

Another reason YHVS has not become as powerful as he should be is that many different prime worlds worship the same god in different ways. Some worlds were exposed to a being named Jesus, others to a being named Muhammed, other exposed to a being named Arriad, and so on. In each place, different ideas about YHVS have sprung up (New Testament, Old Testament, Koran, ect). These various ideas usually clash with one another, proclaiming each other a follower of the false gods they are forbidden to worship.

Background: After spending a lot of time interacting with his followers and performing grand miracles, YVHS suddenly decided to establish a more distant relationship with his followers. Nobody knows why he suddenly choose to distance himself, though a few berks think it has something to do with the other gods. YVHS is now rarely seen in person, communicating through angels instead.

There is one exception to this rule. YVHS will almost always take personal action whenever a devil or other demonic being visits one of the prime worlds that he is worshipped on. Seems that he had a bit of an argument with Asmodeus (something about an apple apparently) and now will hunt down any demon who dares get too close. That said, there is a rumour of a particularly powerful demonic lord who had been hiding out on these demon-free worlds, slowly building power in secret.

Portfolio: Most worlds either are either full of or devoid of followers of YVHS. The Prime worlds are usually the places where he is found to be worshipped, while his influence has yet to spread to the outer planes (probably due to the whole false god, worship no other thing). As such, his influence on the outer planes is limited, while he has an incredible amount of influence on many prime worlds.

Except, we don't do that with Zeus. I want to talk about YVHS as the D&D figure that might exist as an Archetype to add Dash to the Upper Planes that feels rather empty with Asmodeus on one side but no one allowed to put a Christian God figure there.

I don't even mind using another name for him or another Deity in his place. Asmodeus, for example, is Satan in everything but change. Do you think we should have a "blanketly renamed substitute" for YHVS? I think that would work out well.

Bahamut/Paladine was used in Kyrn and he's named Eli by the Elves. Which, again is blanketly a name for God.

However, for people's individual games and settings? Absolutely, that's a solution that can work. As long as we do not eventually still have to say, "so for our purposes, will represent God."

Is Asmodeus just Satan? It says he's an infernal deity of all things bad. I mean, is he Satan in all but name? Cause if so, Jack Chick was right-- we are Satan worshipers. So I think it's more than just a matter of vocabulary that kept "Satan" out of D&D and allowed "Asmodeus" to exist.

So, maybe Yahweh already exists somewhere in Deities & Demigods? Look for a god whose description reads "a celestial deity of creation."

Anyway, I wasn't meaning to start an argument or anything. I'm just saying that discussing creating a Planescape deity whose "portfolio" includes Jews, Christians and Muslims is really tricky and possibly a bad idea.

Please do not dismiss me like that.

Looking past the first line of my post, my second paragraph supported your idea for using a Yahweh figure in their own games and campaigns.

Those interested in the idea may want to check out Green Ronin's Testament, a d20 sourcebook for roleplaying in the Biblical Era. The sourcebook assigns classes and levels to Biblical figures and outlines new spells that fit the theme. It also deals with Yahweh (called simply, "The Deity") and faith, though I do not know how specifically. It might give you some ideas to build off.

Good luck with the thread.

I treat this subject like the Federal Government would — separation of church and fiction. Otherwise, it ties me in so many metaphysical knots that I would rather not deal with. Heck, I don't like C.S. Lewis for making Jesus a character in a work of fiction — because how can Jesus be real and fictional at the same time? Metaphysical knots.

Real-life faith is often plagued with uncertainty and doubt. When I play D&D, I don't need to ask why evil exists in the world. I know the answer with absolute certainty — so we can kill it and get XP! :mrgreen:

Yes, he's a Fallen Angel in D&D.

Well, let's try it anyway.

Yannah
The Transcendent One
Greater God

Alignment: Lawful Good
Portfolio: Creation, Law, Purification, Redemption
Domains: Creation, Law, Good, Healing
Favored Weapon: Quarterstaff

Yannah is a deity that rests at the top of Mount Celestia and doesn't have much day to day contact with human worshipers. Frankly, he's a distant and removed god that most consider more akin to a Seven Heavens version of Asmodeus or Primus. Don't let any of the Solar Devas or Celestial Paragons let you hear anything like that.

The Transcendence tends to de-emphasize human human elements of his being and prefers appearing as signs, portents, and disembodied voices. He prefers working through intermediaries as opposed to sending his avatar directly forth. It's been rumored that several important Prime Material religious figures were actually avatars of Yannah but many individuals have found that difficult to believe.

History/Relationships: Yannah is believed to be one of the original deities that emerged from the Chaos during the early days of the Multiverse. One of many deities, he was a proponent of bringing forth Law out of the Chaos and supported the conflicts that lead to the eventual foundation of the Blood War.

Yannah was deeply injured by the conflict and the Seven Heavens were sundered by the resulting battles. This resulted in the division of the original realm into Mount Celestia, Elysium, and Arborea. It is also believed to have divided Yannah's nature with his other aspects going on to form other deities. It was during this conflict that the Serpent, otherwise known as Asmodeus, convinced Baalzebul to rebel against him and further damaged the ancient battle. Yannah's ancient ally of Bahamut managed to drive out the renegade Tome Archon but it further divided Mount Celestia into seven regions.

Yannah is deeply interested in the promotion of Law and Goodness in the Prime Material and Outer Planes but the devastating consequences of the Blood War followed by his battles with his own former servants have left the deity preferring to act with minimal interference in the mortal plane. Yannah ignores the vast majority of clerics who pray to him and only appoints them extremely rarely.

Instead, Yannah's influence can be felt through the use of Archons throughout the realms. The ancient deity runs a vast bureaucracy that promotes them encouraging mortals to good, leading them to artifacts to fight evil, and quietly disposing of Fiends that attempt to enter the Prime Material before heroes are needed to repulse them. Yannah is not without his worshippers but they have effective free reign to interpret his will where other deities would proceed to smack down those acting in their name. Some gods have criticized this distant and removed policy as only slightly better than the Lady of Pain.

Yannah remains allied with Bahamut whom has first and foremost ability to command any and all of the Transcendent One's countless forces. Other gods known to be allied with Yannah are Lathander and Saint Cuthbert. Both deities have attempted to influence Yannah's worshipers in ways drastically different from the patriarch's original wishes in the name of promoting their own interpretation of the best path to goodness.

Dogma: Yannah's Dogma is rather peery to a lot of mortals as it emphasizes transcendence of one's existing state of being and the troubled state of mortal flesh. The deity, furthermore, emphasizes that one should follow laws extremely rigidly but adds in that mercy and tolerance are likewise to be expected. The contradictions in this might be resolved with the belief that Lathander and Saint Cuthbert have been having fun with his canon but it may simply be that it's a faith that one is meant to strive for rather than actually achieve.

[mod] Please keep topics focused firmly on the *game*, and refrain from using namecalling in your posts. [/mod]

Calvinists don't believe in salvation by faith alone. Your salvation has nothing to do with your faith; you get saved based on God's Will. You basically just hope and pray you were chosen by God (he made the decision of who would be saved at the beginning of Creation).

Lutheranism made the salvation-by-faith-alone doctrine famous, and it directly rejects Calvinism (and vice-versa).

I don't pick Lawful Neutral for Yahweh out of any bitterness towards mainstream Christianity or hatred for its moral clauses; it's just the most fitting choice when you take D&D precedent into account. By D&D's morale compass, Yahweh definitely fits neatly into a Lawful Neutral perspective. There's room for a Chaotic Neutral interpretation too, of course.

The fascinating thing about Calvinism is that, logically speaking, it makes sense. In the case of an omnipotent, omniscient deity, it's perfectly logical that God would know everything; if God knows everything, everything must be set. And that means whether or not you are saved has all ready been determined (because God knows the answer). But then the Calvinists go ahead and assign a number to how many will be saved based on questionable interpretation of scripture.

I digress, however.

God in the Bible is good because God in the Bible is Law. The Law defines what is Good, but there is nothing ontologically 'good' onto itself. This is an important distinction, because I think that the error you're making here (assuming you are making one!) is one of definition. When the Bible says "God is Good", he's good because he is the *Law*, not because he's actually a good guy himself.

I see what you mean about remaking deities so they conform to the standards of D&D's alignment system, but keep in mind that they're being *remade*; are we talking about remaking Yahweh so he fits into D&D, or are we talking about what Yahweh would be like if he was inserted AS IS into D&D? Because I can't pass opinion on a version of Yahweh who's received cosmetic surgery; I can just tell you where Yahweh, as is, fits into D&D. And as is, Yahweh either fits into Lawful Neutral or Chaotic Neutral territory.

The really telling point of this for me is the appearance of Jesus and the complete 180 that happens. Post-Jesus, God *is* Lawful Good. He becomes a source of goodness *unto* himself. But Pre-Jesus, God is definitely in Neutral territory (maybe even Evil, if you're a wacky Gnostic!).

If you're going to dismiss the mythological structure of the deity you're adapting into the game, I don't see any point in bothering with even carrying the name. Just saying "There is a near-omnipotent force of Lawful Good at the top of Mount Celestia" seems enough (and I believe that this has been implied by certain supplements anyway). Most of the infrastructure you're looking for is all ready present.

And as for God doing a 180 after Jesus--this is actually Bible canon. Jesus fulfills the Covenant; all the previous laws and rules God saddled us with are dissolved. His death frees man from the shackles which God set upon him. That's the whole spiritual and mythological point--by dying for our sins, Jesus breaks the system wide open and offers up salvation for everyone. God (and humanity's relationship with him) is transformed by Jesus' death--and that's not a liberal interpretation. There's an enormous amount of metaphorical complexity between these nearly diametrically opposed figures (Old Testament God and New Testament God/Jesus), and throwing it away basically guts the mythology of its very heart.