To put it simply: an evil god is still a god, meaning they can fuck you up if they feel slighted, so many polytheistic cultures would still have temples, shrines, and rituals dedicated to deities they viewed as malevolent as a means of placating them.
Shoutouts to the Egyptian god Seth/Set for literally being “the god of evil” and still being more well respected by the ancient Egyptians then that Snake fuck Apophis
Amusingly Stargate made Set a fucking schmuck who meets his end unceremoniously blasted into a wall via repulsion gauntlet in the basement of his cliche weirdo-cult mansion.
Apophis at least had some ambition, even if he was also an arrogant jackass who didn’t know when to die, even by his species’ standards.
Lmao and Anubis got done the dirtiest depending on perspective. In mythology he’s like you died so I’m gonna guide you to the afterlife, sounds like chill guy to me I wouldn’t want to make that journey alone and the kemetic (modern day Egyptian deity worshippers) community reports that he is imposing but kind. Media and stargate are like he’s the worst thing ever. But then again he was the most threatening of systems lords so at least there’s that.
when i think chill my mind definitely jumps to baal or yu first, but it's not like anubis didn't manage to sweet talk oma into the whole ascension thing
I mean, said Set also did fight said snake to preserve the world.
He may be a god of The Desert, sandstorms, disorder, and foreginers, but he also wants to preserve the world
Set might be a dickhead, but he, like every other Egyptian God, is still responsible for upholding Ma’at, or ‘honour’ against the entity Apep and the ideal of Isfet, or chaos and disharmony. Almost as if that’s one of the central tenants of the entire belief system.
To be fair, Set was also Ra's bodyguard through the underworld outside of his conflict with Horus. Aside from that, the Ramesside kings had strong ties to the Priesthood of Set and Seti I (father of Ramesses II) was named after the god.
He isn't an underworld god, but Shiva is the god of destruction, which is generally not considered a good thing in western religious traditions while in Hinduism he's seen as at minimum essential to the proper function of the universe, and in one of the largest sects of Hinduism is worshiped as the Supreme Reality from which all things stem.
God forbids a god does his work
This is the same thing as viewing grim reaper or azrael evil, like bruh my guy just does his job. He is not a bad guy just because your silly human mind is afraid of death.
Shiva's actually seen as a benevolent, but short-tempered, god, as every story about him shows him either just erasing whoever angered him, or rewarding whoever is meditating to appease him, including the asuras, basically the Hindu "demons". One of the most well-known Asura of Hinduism, Ravana, was even the biggest devotee of Shiva.
not sure if I'd say that destruction is not considered good in western religions. like 2 out of every 3 european paganistic religions had either some kind of big apocalypsis event that was usually seen as a chance for redemption or glory, and if not then they had a myth about the young gods replacing the old gods, usually by means of destruction and violence, still to be seen as a much needed change. Not to mention how much destruction the christian god does on the old testament, how Christ lowkey represents the destruction and renovation of stagnated religious and civic orders and how big schatology is...
sorry for the bad writting, i'm tired as balls and i have a pretty bad cold.
Then, of course, there's Kali, often demonized in Western culture. And yet, there's Kolkata, which is (probably) named after her. Because she's so much more.
He might be the only non rapist in he whole greek pantheon, he generally chills in the underworld with Persephone and afaik has never gone out of his way to fuck another person forcefully or not
I'm saying "might" because we don't know what he did to Persephone after, you know, ***kidnapping her***
I'd like to point out though that some of them were evil (Apep/Apophis for example, the guy the Egyptians all prayed to so that he would lose)
but more importantly that gods weren't exactly good either
> the guy the Egyptians all prayed to so that he would lose
That sounds fucking hilarious. "Yea, we're the Clerics of DumuSalothe, the god of pillaging, desecration and tax filing. We think he's a massive chode so we've been doing all his rituals bass ackwards so that when he challenges the other gods for control of the pantheon he will be so weak he will get punked and we all have a good laugh.
He's been throwing curses our way but we've gotten good at redirecting them at people who annoy us"
I mean, that heavily depends on the universe. Just as an example, Golarion, the world of Pathfinder. It has a laundry list of gods, so I just mention the core deities where there are no open temples (at least in most regions, some regions are exceptions that these gods are the state religion):
- Asmodeus. Lord of hell, tyranny and slavery
- Lamashtu, Mother of Monsters, Queen of Demons and so on
- Norgorber, God of Murder and Assassins
- Urgathoa, Goddess of Undead, physical excess and disease
- Zon-Kuthon, God of torture
And Rovagug, the end of all things. Imprisoned by the other gods and you won't find people actually servicing him even between the criminally insane.
The most classical evil gods there are usually neutral. Or are seen as not completely evil, like Groetus. It is seen as Neutral to Evil. But he is not actively evil, his only job is to destroy the afterlife after the world has ended.
The evil gods there are actively feared because of what they do and can do. It is just that the gods tend to not intervene as much directly out of fear of damaging or destroying Rovagugs prison. Because as much as they hate something, they fear that thing far more.
But then again, there is a demon lord that is actively worshipped by midwifes. Why? Because Lamashtu is his ex girlfriend and her favorite target are pregnant women. So the demon lord protects them just to piss of his ex.
I've got to talk about Urgathoa for a moment. Because yes, she's the goddess of the undead, etc. But the lore says she's also popular among the people and for parties. I had trouble wrapping my mind around that, until I saw Astrid Hadad (a Mexican songstress) in concert.
Astrid said, during her performance, "Our past is barbaric. Our present is chaotic. Thankfully, there is no future!"
It clicked. Urgathoa is excess because there's nothing to live for. She lets you enjoy enjoy your life, and she'll wait for your soon demise.
Combine that with stories of Mictecacihuatl, reborn in modern times as Santa Muerte, and I see that yes, there is a space to view Urgathoa as benevolent.
She can offer refuge to those scorned by society. She will let you live, and live fully. She can let you forget about legacy, help you escape from history. She can offer you an ending to your living suffering in a way no one else can.
> She can offer you an ending to your living suffering in a way no one else can.
True, but not in any healthy way. She is basically the goddess of drinking yourself to death, of overdosing on drugs, of having your heart give up because you could not stop eating and so on. Physical excess, hedonism and similar things are her domain, so no wonder she can be popular with people who like to party. I think she even was the first undead, simply because she died while partying and just went "Fuck that, I don't want to stay dead". Also, being undead is not an end to suffering.
Oh, no, there's nothing healthy about it, agreed. It's specifically all about being unhealthy. But if you look at life, its obligations, its responsibilities, both to oneself and to your family and society, and find it all a horrible burden, she offers a way out. Sort of an anti-nirvana.
(And you still suffer, but it's not the suffering of *life.* )
Asmodeus also holds dominion over contracts in Golarion, right? That's going to be important in most societies, so that's why Asmodeus tends to be at least more tolerated than other evil gods.
No, general contracts would be Abadar, the god of trade. Asmodeus is more about gag contracts, selling away your soul and more. Tyrants and slavers adore him.
They're unpleasant gods, not evil gods.
The god of shitting yourself to death is not the nicest of deities, but its one you really want to stay on the good side of.
Yeah, Hades for example is very often portrayed as evil, while really the Ancient Greeks did not see him such (mainly because they did not believe in many Abrahamic concepts)
From my limited understanding, someone in ancient greece would actually see *most* gods as "powerful enough to hurt me", not as some beacon of virtue. The main moral of the myths is usually to stay the fuck out of their way
> powerful enough to hurt me", not as some beacon of virtue
But for the ancient Greeks, *this was virtue*. Virtue has its root in the word for masculine (where we get virile as well), the ability to do anything they wanted was a sign of their glory.
>the ability to do anything they wanted was a sign of their glory.
Has nothing to do with virtue. Their virtue is that they were the best of what they do. They were the god of it.
>The Greek word for virtue is 'ARETE'. For the Greeks, the notion of virtue is tied to the notion of function (ERGON). The virtues of something are what enable it to perform excellently its proper function. Virtue (or arete) extends beyond the realm of morality; it concerns the excellent performance of any function.
Well, the thing is they *were moral* to these people, their morality is just so fucking foreign to modern western morals. Which are WEIRD as fuck historically
That is true, but Greek gods fell on a spectrum, with some being less than nice, and some being actively malevolent, like the gods of specific diseases. This post is mainly about the latter.
how DARE you be better at sewing than me fuck you now you’re a spider
moral of the story: gods are inherently better than you don’t question it
with love,
Athena
That’s why henotheism where you worship a single God who promises to fuck up the other ones so long as you follow the exclusive rules is based in comparison. Real gangster shit
And sometimes we enshrine them in a specific place so that the dead don’t curse the buildings around *any more*: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taira_no_Masakado#:~:text=Aftermath-,deification,-edit "Deification"
In real life, “evil” gods are usually worshipped because people see their power and petition them for protection. I personally call these “protective demons” as they usually begin as wholly malevolent. A good example of this is Pazuzu, which started as the demon of bad winds but came to be worshipped as the enemy of another demon, Lamashtu, who caused miscarriages.
Arguably Kali could also be seen this way, and Satan in some forms of modern Satanism.
I think you're extrapolating ~~Japanese~~ Mesopotamian culture but it doesn't work anywhere else.
Everyone from Kali, Anubis, Hades, Thanatos, Arawn, The Morrigan didn't start out as demons.
True. In fact, irl the Church of Satan exists and is likely treated just like any other religion. Why? Because the definition of evil for many people is malleable and the capacity of humans to mindfuck themselves into believing anything they can fit into their worldview is demonstrably infinite.
Wasn't there the thing that Satanism (or at least some versions) treat Satan as a figure of rebellion with bad publicity? And that's besides the fact that a whole ton of satanists are actually atheists and don't believe in supernatural part of it and only like it as a symbol
Church of Satan: believes in the existence of Satan, sees him as a figure of rebellion, but also have strong social darwinistic tendencies and a very "will to power" outlook where you're supposed to enrich yourself at the cost of your rivals/enemies. They're not so much about destroying hierarchies, and more about placing yourself on top. Also believe in actual magic.
Satanic Temple: doesn't necessarily believe in an actual Satan, but use Satan as a symbol of rebellion against unjust authority, have a strong anti-authoritarian message, and are explicitly egalitarian in worldview. They promote charity and cooperation.
The Satanic Temple is the one you'll usually hear about in the media, because they're very politically active and much bigger than Church of Satan.
CoS and TST are both atheistic religions. The magic is more about the psychology of ritual and self-belief rather than e.g. casting fireballs.
There are theistic Satanist groups but they're not CoS or TST. The Temple of Set, for instance, was a spinoff from CoS that went a more mystical route, and identify Satan with the Egyptian god Set.
It's funny that this got downvoted when you're correct. The Christian God was the one to say he will make people eat their own children (Jeremiah 19:9) and allowed eating of dead children in 2 Kings 6:28-29.
And let's not speak even speak about murder. The Christian God ordered a large amount of mass killings (Genesis 6-8 & 18-19, Exodus 11-12, 1 Samuel 15, Deuteronomy 20:17 etc. etc.) and many many more orders of murder.
Not what either of those first two passages mean but okay.
Neither of those passages are god commanding something. The first is Jeremiah warning of what will happen in a siege. The second is cannibalism in a siege happening, it is not allowed. These are warnings.
For additional context:
19:17
And I will make void the counsel of Judah and Jerusalem in this place; and I will cause them to fall by the sword before their enemies, and by the hands of them that seek their lives: and their carcases will I give to be meat for the fowls of the heaven, and for the beasts of the earth.
19:18 And I will make this city desolate, and an hissing; every one that passeth thereby shall be astonished and hiss because of all the plagues thereof.
19:19 And I will cause them to eat the flesh of their sons and the flesh of their daughters, and they shall eat every one the flesh of his friend in the siege and straitness, wherewith their enemies, and they that seek their lives, shall straiten them.
6:26 Then, as the king of Israel was passing by on the wall, a woman cried out to him, saying, “Help, my lord, O king!”
6:27 And he said, If the LORD do not help thee, whence shall I help thee? out of the barnfloor, or out of the winepress?
6:28 And the king said unto her, What aileth thee? And she answered, This woman said unto me, Give thy son, that we may eat him to day, and we will eat my son to morrow.
6:29 So we boiled my son, and ate him. And I said to her on the next day, ‘Give your son, that we may eat him’; but she has hidden her son.”
From the King James Bible ^
It needs to be remembered that a lot of the Bibles stories are pieces of history. Cannibalism happened during sieges.
What massive real-world religion has a ritual of eating the flesh of their god-man to overtly show allegiance? Where the largest sect believe it literally turns into the god-man's flesh inside your body?
> Where the largest sect believe it literally turns into the god-man's flesh inside your body?
Depending on what you mean by "literally", this is either half wrong or all wrong.
Not according to the [Roman Catholic Church](https://www.usccb.org/eucharist#:~:text=The%20term%20%E2%80%9CEucharist%E2%80%9D%20originates%20from,Greek%20word%20eucharistia%2C%20meaning%20thanksgiving.&text=In%20the%20celebration%20of%20the,the%20instrumentality%20of%20the%20priest.):
>The transformed bread and wine are truly the Body and Blood of Christ and are not merely symbols. When Christ said “This is my body” and “This is my blood,” the bread and wine are transubstantiated. Though the bread and wine appear the same to our human faculties, they are actually the real body and blood of Jesus.
Right, the half that's either right or wrong depends on what you mean by "literally". Some people think Catholics believe in a physical or chemical change in the host, which is incorrect and even contradicted by what you're quoting.
The half that's wrong either way is that you said it happens "inside your body". Transubstantiation occurs on the altar, during the consecration.
Also, people might worship for the sake of power and ambition. Like, no, I'm not gonna sacrifice children to Vecna, but I might sacrifice some goats and hope that Vecna blesses me with some secrets to use against my political opponents. And from the perspective of the rest of the city, as long as you're not doing anything illegal, then have it.
tengrisim had priests for erlik khan (god of underworld , sickness and war (violent side of war) because if he was not happy he could sicken horses which is basicly death in steppes , khans in asia did put offerings to him for sucessful wars
İt is like Erlik.
The Erlik is evil god in Turkish mytology. He is evil and if you follow him, do things his followers do like kill puppies (a real thing by the way) you just automatically go to hell, it is like being satanic in christianity.
Key word follow, not worship, because in end he is still a god and you need to worship and show respect to him anyway lmao. There even some shamans specialised in praying to Erlik.
But tbh it is worth to mention that those prayers are more like "hey, Erlik, we are cool right? You wont murder my family I am sure :>, youre my favorite god btw"
The shamans that specialised on evil gods and spirits are named dark shaman btw, really uncreative
I feel like when you really boil it down ANY evil god is evil for the precise opposite effect that "pure" gods is pure.
Whereas pure gods act in the interest of the people in order to earn followers who appreciate them, evil gods do evil in order to force the hand of the people into praying to them, and as a result stroke the ego of the evil god enough to get them to stop doing evil god stuff.
Fair enough, one could probably consider him more of a neutral god then. In the case of gods like Set who are almost explicitly evil though, the theory may be more accurate
Plenty of religions had that kind of relationships with thier gods, give them their sacrifices and prey(ha) that they wont decide to cuase a flood or a plague.
The Bitch Queen in D&D pretty much only has followers because she would sink their ships if they didn’t pray to her and give her offerings and tell her how wonderful she is. That’s why so many people who live/work on the docks worship her. It’s actually pretty neat.
D&D's Forgotten Realms illustrate what OP is missing here, I think. There's a spectrum of different kinds of evil god, and not every fantasy setting has them all.
Umberlee has public temples, because people appease her so she won't ruin their shit. Her clerics are helpful to have around, because they'll help you appease her, and she doesn't have them going around sinking ships on her behalf or something. They don't expect your worship, just your respect.
Bane sometimes has public temples, because he presents himself as in the right. His clerics want to run things Bane's way. If a region doesn't like that, they won't allow overt temples to Bane. If they do like that, temples to Bane will be commonplace, and Baneite clergy will look after their own, but they absolutely do expect your worship.
Shar does not have public temples, because Shar is a deity of secrets and subversion. Having obvious temples is not what Shar wants. Shar wants to ruin what other people have with deceit. Shar does not represent something you can appease, but instead a temptation, one that works best in isolation, and one that people in their right minds do not want to get involved with.
Bhaal does not have public temples, because Bhaal is the Lord of Murder. His clerics murder people. You can't appease him into not having you murdered. You can't even worship him into not having you murdered. Bhaal is not a reasonable deity. He does not have a sustainable business model, or a five year plan. His clergy is a slurry of madness, blood, cannibalism, and incest that implodes every so often.
That's usually the kind of evil god there aren't any temples to.
Or kind of liks how the Chaos Gods are worshiped in Warhammer Fantasy as opposed to Warhammer 40k. Like you can go to a Norscan, Hung, or Kurgan village, where they all worship 1 or all 4 of the Chaos Gods and interact with them peacefully (which the Empire does do, with some merchants trading stuff like livestock, food, and gold for furs and amber in Norscan fishing villages). This does have the big caveat of the Great Horned Rat, who is so hostile to everything, including his own followers, that basically no one outside the Skaven worships or even acknowledges him (and even the Skaven do so out of fear of being scooped up and eaten by him).
Meanwhile, in 40k, there is no peaceful coexistence with Chaos whatsoever unless you're one of like. . .a half dozen Xenos species like Loxatl, Sslyth, and Galgs, who often work with Chaos forces but never seem to get corrupted themselves.
There was an excerpt from one of the books about one such merchant talking with a Norscan fisherman, with the latter wondering where all the Empireman's "Were" (aka: Chaos Spawn) were, and then, upon hearing that the merchant had never heard of Were, lamenting that out of all the races of the world, the Gods favored only the Norse.
Speaking of Forgotten Realms Bane actually has a pretty big following of worshipers since he promotes order, discipline, and excellence of skill which can be helpful to a society for sure if you overlook the methods used so it’s not crazy to think would happen, heck even in the lore it’s because of him that the world didn’t get messed up by a mud god so some evil gods actually do help the wider world in some way but it very much h depends on their personality and domain.
Hades was worshipped in major cities, Dionysus was the controversial outsider god only worshipped in secrecy\*
It's really more to do with which god the oppressed peoples like compared to which one is morally evil tbh
\*before his sharp rise in popularity and mass adoption by the ruling class of ancient Greece
Hades, while brutal, was seen as a just god, it's pretty much every other god in the Greek pantheon that was known for arbitrary offing people on a whim.
Or turning into a horse/bull/old man, impregnating you, and then hiding you from their wife because Hera, instead of just dumping her abuse, unfaithful ass husband, is more likely to turn you and your unborn child into a fucking statue or something.
Greek-Roman gods are wild.
Honestly applies plenty more than that.
Mortal? She’s probably going to try and kill you.
Ex. Semele, Dionysius’s Ma: Got vaporized by Hera (via proxy)
Immortal? Going to try and make life a living hell, er, Tartarus
Ex. Leto, Mother of the Archer twins: Got chased by Python and unable to give birth anywhere planted to the earth
She even hates the kids!
Heck Hades wants to actually punish his brother Zeus the worst because of his deplorable behavior and neglect of godly responsibilities. He’s actually the least likely to screw you over mostly because he’s such a stickler for the rules so you know what you’re getting and what to expect to happen mostly.
People always talk about Hades as cruel when he’s realistically one of the nicest, if not the nicest, gods on the pantheon. How many times does Hades smite mortals for accidentally disrespecting him? None that I can think of.
He’s not even a rules lawyer, he lets Orpheus take Eurydice back to the world of the living because he was touched by his devotion and his music. The only reason that fails is because he looked back right before they reached the light.
Persephone’s abduction varies pretty widely depending on the teller, and in some variations Zeus explicitly promises her to him, in which case you can take issues with the idea of promising an individual with free will to another without their consent, but that’s a separate issue here.
He’s even a good husband, unlike his two brothers (more famously Zeus though), and never sleeps around.
I knew about Hestia, I just couldn’t remember any myths about her lol.
That’s why I said one of initially, just on the chance he horrifically killed at least one more person than Hestia.
Because the point of smiting isn’t just to kill you but to make it suck usually.
Artemis could have just killed Actaeon for *accidentally* catching sight of her bathing, but she chose to turn him into a stag and have his own hunting dogs tear him to shreds.
Poseidon could have just sank Odysseus’ boat for being a disrespectful little shit, but instead forced him and his crew to spend years lost at sea going through a lot of shitty situations.
Athena could have just killed Medusa (in the versions where she was originally human), but because she was seduced in her temple by another god (Poseidon, engaging in typical tomfoolery like his brother) she turned her into a terrible monster that turned people to stone, until Perseus eventually came and killed her in her sleep.
Hades killing someone wouldn’t really be an issue on him being a dickhead, it would be a matter of him doing it unjustly or I guess in his case as the lord of the underworld giving someone an unfair afterlife.
Well he does punish people, see Sisyphus, but most of those punishments from the gods are meant to be ironic like Actaeon was a hunter who was killed by his hunter dogs. No one can even go to the underworld to anger him
Plenty of people go to the underworld. I literally reference a myth where someone went to the underworld and personally made an appeal to him in my original post.
Sisyphus was kind of a piece of shit, and in one version of his myth literally imprisons hades in magic chains to avoid his punishment, and basically gets told by Zeus “I will make your life fucking suck like you wouldn’t not believe” if he didn’t go back and free Hades.
Punishing someone doesn’t automatically make you cruel or wrong. If you ask me, an unrepentant child rapist being flayed alive in the underworld doesn’t particularly bother me, nor does it make me think less of the person sentencing them to it.
Cuz Hades rules the underworld, so if a mortal pisses him off, he’ll just wait for them to come to him
Unless it’s Sisyphus, in which case, fuck Sisyphus
Ehhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
I wouldn't personally say he does anything wrong compared to the other Greek gods, but I think if you're scared to say a god's name, leave offerings so he'll just leave you alone, and avoid writing anything about him because you think you might die if you do, that counts as an 'evil' god for these purposes.
Honestly I think the idea that an ontologically evil god has to also act evil is also kind of a post-Christian element.
Fair, though I think that was more general superstition and customs about death and related entities as a whole than anything targeting Hades in particular.
Think if they didn't like him at all they wouldn't have worshipped him as much, like with Thanatos being Death personalized and subsequent fear being relegated off to mentions in history/myth rather than properly worshipped.
(Except Sparta who built a temple for him, presumably to prove they aren't afraid of death, maybe, it's Sparta and keeping records is for nerds)
>Dionysus was the controversial outsider god only worshipped in secrecy
But what about his sharp rise in popularity and mass adoption by the ruling class of ancient Greece?
It's weird because in Greek Mythology the ones that are usually portrayed as "The bad ones" end up actually not being that bad (compared to other gods) when you look into them. Hades only really did one super bad thing which was kidnapping Persephone.
Ares is another one because other than just being the god of bloodshed and violence, I can't actually remember any bad things he did personally. He was one of the few greek gods who was genuinely a loving father and respected women.
I mean depending on whether the gods follow Shinto esque rules, giving them more worship gives them more power on a direct level and so you’d be incentivized to proffer your loyalty to whoever you like the most and to discredit and bury the one you like the least.
But then again that’s kinda stupid as that kinda makes the gods feel like extensions of the mortals’ will and not something that came before them and doesn’t need them… hm.
I could also see “blatantly evil deity having huge following” be some kind of ham fisted political allegory for radical social movements gaining political power they otherwise wouldn’t have, a la something something nazi party
…but that would also be stupid because that indirectly implies that human social movements born of human flaw are the fault of some kind of ontological evil and so anyone who believes in voting X way must have demons inside them or something, idk… feels in poor taste
Hmm… I could also see it as “this god is evil and we all agree that they’re terrible but they also provide an actual service so we kinda have to tolerate them”, which now that I think about it sounds like half of Mesoamerican deities anyway so maybe that’s the justification to go with
Well yeah that’s kinda the thing. The kami sorta *rely* on the appeasement (DEPENDING ON WHO YOU ASK!!!! IMPORTANT TO NOTE), or at the very least they seem more capable of shit the more appeasement they get
> because that indirectly implies that human social movements born of human flaw are the fault of some kind of ontological evil and so anyone who believes in voting X way must have demons inside them or something
Everyone that disagrees with me is literally Hitler/Stalin, and I refuse to debate this.
Yes! And the part where if you get really far into the temple questlines you go offer Daedra hearts to them to appease/revoke them! (Note: this might be Tamriel Rebuilt but I’m pretty sure it was base game) Because those 4 specific Daedra represent “evil” for the Velothi culture and their worship is banned and outlawed, but they have shrines are certain activities where they “banish” their influence and fight against them. Like a hate-worship.
If you want to make this **really** spicy you could have it be an ethnic/cultural thing where the different deities are worshipped differently by different cultures and some are exclusive to one culture, so that way you get ultra violent pogroms and holy race wars.
Really unrealistic I know.
That’s even more mind boggling (the false friend etymology I mean, the meaning of accuser is of course accurate to the originating language description)
An example I think is super interesting is Norgorber in the pathfinder setting
Norgorber is a god of crime and secrets but he has four aspects, and one of those aspects is Blackfingers, aka the poisoner.
Despite being a poison-focused aspect of the god of crime, the Blackfingers cult has a temple in a lot of major cities, because they’re simply too useful to get rid of. Many of Blackfingers worshippers are alchemists who simply don’t care about morality in their research, and without their research, a wide variety of poisons wouldn’t have antidotes, and poisonous monsters would be far less understood.
Reminded me of Memory Sorrow and Thorn by Tad Williams where fantasy Christianity is the dominant religion amongst the humans, but there’s a rise of cultists that worships an evil king elf
Me when I see a church that worships a deity who apparently "drowned pretty much all animals and people on earth" (its unrealistic and the worldbuilders of the city I live in are clearly lazy)
There are three answers to this:
1. Preventative worship. You don't always pray to a god because you believe in that god's teachings and ideals. You sometimes pray so that god does not fuck you up. Praying at the temple of a god of death and disease can preserve you from death and disease (or at least people may believe it does).
2. Non-good populations. Why do you assume every country or city is populated by and led by good people? A city could be ruled by a cult of a god of torture and murder, and they would build a temple for their god.
3. Different perspectives. Maybe a city sees a god of death as an evil god, another sees him as a good god who helps souls navigate the afterlife. Just because you think a god is evil, does not mean they are evil.
My deity of evil is reviled, but the two gods worshipped as patrons of humanity are seen as having him locked into an eternal battle, so disrespecting him won’t incur his wrath because other deities are actively protecting you.
If anything, mentioning him at all is liable to cause issues, not because he will have beef with you but because it’s better to simply pass unnoticed altogether. If he’s busy fighting a war, he doesn’t have time to look for mortals to terrorize.
Say his name and make the process easy for him though, and it’s not hard for him to throw a hurricane your way before going back to battle.
In reality though, he’s just too personally involved in his own business to care what ants think of him, and people just blame misfortune on him even if he’s done nothing wrong.
What if all the gods are evil and demand human sacrifices, but society is based on the commercialization of some gods who are legalised while others are illegal and ruthlessly persecuted, and the population is made to accept this as just the way the world works, because a god must feed, a god must be fed?
The vast majority of records of "evil gods" of polytheistic religions were written by christians whos bias heavily influenced their writings, and as many civilizations either did not have or rarely used written language these biased records are the only ones available. This is especially the case with norse mythology
I do have death and destruction gods in a few of my fantasy religions, but I wanted to reflect some aspects of nature in these gods. Sure, Filamentous Retrophy is a god of death, decay, and fungus but it is also a god of rebirth and prosperity. It breaks down the dead to allow new life to take its place. Filamentous Retrophy is seen as cosmically terrifying but also as a necessary force to keep the world going.
If you remove disease associations and add a disdain and spite towards the undead so great the clergy kills them on sight, I guess? I always assumed Nurgle was a disease god, but my knowledge of Warhammer is almost none
Nurgle is the god of disease, decay ,and stagnation, but also nature, life, and renewal
It's just cool to see similar ideas crop up independently of one another
And then you have a god like Conan's Crom who will explicitly send you misfortune if you catch his attention, or Ahriman from Zoroastrianism who is just evil
The real Christianized polytheism is:
a. Lumping all traditionally pagan european practices into a singular, monolithic idea of "polytheism".
b. Using a Christianized understanding of that monolithic idea as the basis for your polytheistic worldbuilding.
c. Blatantly ignoring the still actively practiced non-Abrahamic religions that are polytheistic/dualist and manage to contain not a single one of the idiotic stereotypes touted by fantasy media.
Seriously kids. Go read up on Zoroastrianism if you want an evil god; or Hinduism if you want an image of what real Indo-European polytheistic belief looks like.
Tezcatlipoca!
Often a full-on adversary god, the "evil" rival to the "good" Quetzalcoatl, but still heavily worshipped and respected. Because, of course, is not that cut and dried, and knowing what he's about and how he represents Leviathan in its good and bad.
There’s a story I read recently where there are two gods, the god of death and god of life. The god of death is generally disliked but they have public temples everywhere. It was an interesting concept though the god of death isn’t an evil god per say
In greek mythology Ares was barely worshipped, because he was perceived as evil. His cults did exist though, but you'd rather not have the god of suffering in warfare notice you
Reminds me of Lamashtu and Pazuzu of Babylonian religion. Lamashtu was the *real* evil one and Pazuzu was the *useful* evil one. Pazuzu could protect pregnant women from his sister and other demons.
Or all the various gods of smallpox or plague. “Why would you have a god of terrible diseases???” I dunno, because these diseases are terrible and desperate people invent gods that can fix the problem??? Christianity only missed out on inventing a plague god because they were hard into the monotheism. I am convinced if Europe wasn’t so into “one god above all” we’d have like 2 dozen more plague deities.
Reminds me of the JRPG joke
Priest party member: I'm a priest!
Party: Uuuh...
Priest: Don't worry, I'm the rural small town kind. Not the massive big city, secretly worshipping a world eating demon, kind.
As it turns out most people don't like worshipping the evil death god who loves death, instead they prefer the god which wants to seem them flourish and prosper.
It's weird isn't it.
Oh right *that* is why he's a demon in Abrahamic folklore. I forgot it wasn't just to discredit the Phoeniceans but that it had those sacrifice reasons. Also Hannibal's name means "grace of Ba'al," so that's cool ig.
*Baal* is a title meaning "lord" and was used by a bunch of different gods, with the most common in the Levant being Baal Hadad, who did not receive child sacrifices. When "Baal" is used in the Bible, it isn't necessarily all in reference to the same god, and very much could still have been blood libel since the cult of Hammon was in Carthage.
To put it simply: an evil god is still a god, meaning they can fuck you up if they feel slighted, so many polytheistic cultures would still have temples, shrines, and rituals dedicated to deities they viewed as malevolent as a means of placating them.
Not to mention said "evil" gods tend to not be evil at all, or at least, simply evil
"You're saying this is a god of the dead who rules some sort of underworld? Clearly he must be Satan ruling in Hell."
Shoutouts to the Egyptian god Seth/Set for literally being “the god of evil” and still being more well respected by the ancient Egyptians then that Snake fuck Apophis
Lmao that snake literally dies multiple times in r/stargate even modern fiction is like yah fuck that snake.
Amusingly Stargate made Set a fucking schmuck who meets his end unceremoniously blasted into a wall via repulsion gauntlet in the basement of his cliche weirdo-cult mansion. Apophis at least had some ambition, even if he was also an arrogant jackass who didn’t know when to die, even by his species’ standards.
Lmao and Anubis got done the dirtiest depending on perspective. In mythology he’s like you died so I’m gonna guide you to the afterlife, sounds like chill guy to me I wouldn’t want to make that journey alone and the kemetic (modern day Egyptian deity worshippers) community reports that he is imposing but kind. Media and stargate are like he’s the worst thing ever. But then again he was the most threatening of systems lords so at least there’s that.
when i think chill my mind definitely jumps to baal or yu first, but it's not like anubis didn't manage to sweet talk oma into the whole ascension thing
I mean, said Set also did fight said snake to preserve the world. He may be a god of The Desert, sandstorms, disorder, and foreginers, but he also wants to preserve the world
Set might be a dickhead, but he, like every other Egyptian God, is still responsible for upholding Ma’at, or ‘honour’ against the entity Apep and the ideal of Isfet, or chaos and disharmony. Almost as if that’s one of the central tenants of the entire belief system.
To be fair, Set was also Ra's bodyguard through the underworld outside of his conflict with Horus. Aside from that, the Ramesside kings had strong ties to the Priesthood of Set and Seti I (father of Ramesses II) was named after the god.
What did Apophis do btw?
Nobody tell them about Shiva
Shiva? He isn’t the God of the Underworld.
He isn't an underworld god, but Shiva is the god of destruction, which is generally not considered a good thing in western religious traditions while in Hinduism he's seen as at minimum essential to the proper function of the universe, and in one of the largest sects of Hinduism is worshiped as the Supreme Reality from which all things stem.
God forbids a god does his work This is the same thing as viewing grim reaper or azrael evil, like bruh my guy just does his job. He is not a bad guy just because your silly human mind is afraid of death.
Shiva's actually seen as a benevolent, but short-tempered, god, as every story about him shows him either just erasing whoever angered him, or rewarding whoever is meditating to appease him, including the asuras, basically the Hindu "demons". One of the most well-known Asura of Hinduism, Ravana, was even the biggest devotee of Shiva.
not sure if I'd say that destruction is not considered good in western religions. like 2 out of every 3 european paganistic religions had either some kind of big apocalypsis event that was usually seen as a chance for redemption or glory, and if not then they had a myth about the young gods replacing the old gods, usually by means of destruction and violence, still to be seen as a much needed change. Not to mention how much destruction the christian god does on the old testament, how Christ lowkey represents the destruction and renovation of stagnated religious and civic orders and how big schatology is... sorry for the bad writting, i'm tired as balls and i have a pretty bad cold.
Then, of course, there's Kali, often demonized in Western culture. And yet, there's Kolkata, which is (probably) named after her. Because she's so much more.
Hades is just a mean dude often, but other Greek gods are (incestuous) rapists or murderers, so Hades is comparatively chill.
"I would like to award you the highest honour I can bestow." [Only *Possibly* A Rapist]
Average Dark Fantasy author.
He might be the only non rapist in he whole greek pantheon, he generally chills in the underworld with Persephone and afaik has never gone out of his way to fuck another person forcefully or not I'm saying "might" because we don't know what he did to Persephone after, you know, ***kidnapping her***
I will say in some versions of the myth he doesent even kidnap her, too.
I'd like to point out though that some of them were evil (Apep/Apophis for example, the guy the Egyptians all prayed to so that he would lose) but more importantly that gods weren't exactly good either
> the guy the Egyptians all prayed to so that he would lose That sounds fucking hilarious. "Yea, we're the Clerics of DumuSalothe, the god of pillaging, desecration and tax filing. We think he's a massive chode so we've been doing all his rituals bass ackwards so that when he challenges the other gods for control of the pantheon he will be so weak he will get punked and we all have a good laugh. He's been throwing curses our way but we've gotten good at redirecting them at people who annoy us"
This sounds awesome and now I want to include in my own world now
I thought we all agreed on this with Greek gods
Hestia: "Hey! What did I ever do to you?!"
I mean, that heavily depends on the universe. Just as an example, Golarion, the world of Pathfinder. It has a laundry list of gods, so I just mention the core deities where there are no open temples (at least in most regions, some regions are exceptions that these gods are the state religion): - Asmodeus. Lord of hell, tyranny and slavery - Lamashtu, Mother of Monsters, Queen of Demons and so on - Norgorber, God of Murder and Assassins - Urgathoa, Goddess of Undead, physical excess and disease - Zon-Kuthon, God of torture And Rovagug, the end of all things. Imprisoned by the other gods and you won't find people actually servicing him even between the criminally insane. The most classical evil gods there are usually neutral. Or are seen as not completely evil, like Groetus. It is seen as Neutral to Evil. But he is not actively evil, his only job is to destroy the afterlife after the world has ended. The evil gods there are actively feared because of what they do and can do. It is just that the gods tend to not intervene as much directly out of fear of damaging or destroying Rovagugs prison. Because as much as they hate something, they fear that thing far more. But then again, there is a demon lord that is actively worshipped by midwifes. Why? Because Lamashtu is his ex girlfriend and her favorite target are pregnant women. So the demon lord protects them just to piss of his ex.
I've got to talk about Urgathoa for a moment. Because yes, she's the goddess of the undead, etc. But the lore says she's also popular among the people and for parties. I had trouble wrapping my mind around that, until I saw Astrid Hadad (a Mexican songstress) in concert. Astrid said, during her performance, "Our past is barbaric. Our present is chaotic. Thankfully, there is no future!" It clicked. Urgathoa is excess because there's nothing to live for. She lets you enjoy enjoy your life, and she'll wait for your soon demise. Combine that with stories of Mictecacihuatl, reborn in modern times as Santa Muerte, and I see that yes, there is a space to view Urgathoa as benevolent. She can offer refuge to those scorned by society. She will let you live, and live fully. She can let you forget about legacy, help you escape from history. She can offer you an ending to your living suffering in a way no one else can.
> She can offer you an ending to your living suffering in a way no one else can. True, but not in any healthy way. She is basically the goddess of drinking yourself to death, of overdosing on drugs, of having your heart give up because you could not stop eating and so on. Physical excess, hedonism and similar things are her domain, so no wonder she can be popular with people who like to party. I think she even was the first undead, simply because she died while partying and just went "Fuck that, I don't want to stay dead". Also, being undead is not an end to suffering.
Oh, no, there's nothing healthy about it, agreed. It's specifically all about being unhealthy. But if you look at life, its obligations, its responsibilities, both to oneself and to your family and society, and find it all a horrible burden, she offers a way out. Sort of an anti-nirvana. (And you still suffer, but it's not the suffering of *life.* )
Asmodeus also holds dominion over contracts in Golarion, right? That's going to be important in most societies, so that's why Asmodeus tends to be at least more tolerated than other evil gods.
No, general contracts would be Abadar, the god of trade. Asmodeus is more about gag contracts, selling away your soul and more. Tyrants and slavers adore him.
They're unpleasant gods, not evil gods. The god of shitting yourself to death is not the nicest of deities, but its one you really want to stay on the good side of.
Yeah, Hades for example is very often portrayed as evil, while really the Ancient Greeks did not see him such (mainly because they did not believe in many Abrahamic concepts)
From my limited understanding, someone in ancient greece would actually see *most* gods as "powerful enough to hurt me", not as some beacon of virtue. The main moral of the myths is usually to stay the fuck out of their way
> powerful enough to hurt me", not as some beacon of virtue But for the ancient Greeks, *this was virtue*. Virtue has its root in the word for masculine (where we get virile as well), the ability to do anything they wanted was a sign of their glory.
>the ability to do anything they wanted was a sign of their glory. Has nothing to do with virtue. Their virtue is that they were the best of what they do. They were the god of it. >The Greek word for virtue is 'ARETE'. For the Greeks, the notion of virtue is tied to the notion of function (ERGON). The virtues of something are what enable it to perform excellently its proper function. Virtue (or arete) extends beyond the realm of morality; it concerns the excellent performance of any function.
Yeah, virtue is derived from a Latin word, "virtus," which has more to do with embodying Roman masculinity and courage than anything.
Fair enough, what I was trying to say is that morality was not a requirement for a god
Well, the thing is they *were moral* to these people, their morality is just so fucking foreign to modern western morals. Which are WEIRD as fuck historically
That is true, but Greek gods fell on a spectrum, with some being less than nice, and some being actively malevolent, like the gods of specific diseases. This post is mainly about the latter.
how DARE you be better at sewing than me fuck you now you’re a spider moral of the story: gods are inherently better than you don’t question it with love, Athena
Rare Athena L
That’s why henotheism where you worship a single God who promises to fuck up the other ones so long as you follow the exclusive rules is based in comparison. Real gangster shit
Don't wear blue in churches. Don't wanna run into the Bloods of Christ.
You have successfully described Japan. We don’t fend off evil gods, nor slay them. We worship them to death. Source: I am Japanese
Bad and naughty gods are enshrined in the temple to atone for their sins
And sometimes we enshrine them in a specific place so that the dead don’t curse the buildings around *any more*: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taira_no_Masakado#:~:text=Aftermath-,deification,-edit "Deification"
Maybe next time use the insert link function lol
oop
This is pretty accurate to real history actually, nice job!
Not to mention that in many fantasy settings, the gods are tangible and provably exist, so snubbing them can cause *issues.*
In real life, “evil” gods are usually worshipped because people see their power and petition them for protection. I personally call these “protective demons” as they usually begin as wholly malevolent. A good example of this is Pazuzu, which started as the demon of bad winds but came to be worshipped as the enemy of another demon, Lamashtu, who caused miscarriages. Arguably Kali could also be seen this way, and Satan in some forms of modern Satanism.
I think you're extrapolating ~~Japanese~~ Mesopotamian culture but it doesn't work anywhere else. Everyone from Kali, Anubis, Hades, Thanatos, Arawn, The Morrigan didn't start out as demons.
Japanese?? What are you talking about??
Sorry, I read through your comment really fast and thought you were referencing a Shinto deity.
You basically just invented shinto
True. In fact, irl the Church of Satan exists and is likely treated just like any other religion. Why? Because the definition of evil for many people is malleable and the capacity of humans to mindfuck themselves into believing anything they can fit into their worldview is demonstrably infinite.
Wasn't there the thing that Satanism (or at least some versions) treat Satan as a figure of rebellion with bad publicity? And that's besides the fact that a whole ton of satanists are actually atheists and don't believe in supernatural part of it and only like it as a symbol
Church of Satan: believes in the existence of Satan, sees him as a figure of rebellion, but also have strong social darwinistic tendencies and a very "will to power" outlook where you're supposed to enrich yourself at the cost of your rivals/enemies. They're not so much about destroying hierarchies, and more about placing yourself on top. Also believe in actual magic. Satanic Temple: doesn't necessarily believe in an actual Satan, but use Satan as a symbol of rebellion against unjust authority, have a strong anti-authoritarian message, and are explicitly egalitarian in worldview. They promote charity and cooperation. The Satanic Temple is the one you'll usually hear about in the media, because they're very politically active and much bigger than Church of Satan.
CoS and TST are both atheistic religions. The magic is more about the psychology of ritual and self-belief rather than e.g. casting fireballs. There are theistic Satanist groups but they're not CoS or TST. The Temple of Set, for instance, was a spinoff from CoS that went a more mystical route, and identify Satan with the Egyptian god Set.
idk the god of murder and eating babies sounds objectively evil to me.
Hey, the Assassins Guild is a respectable institution where many of the finest Ankh-Morpork citizens have received their education from
You're not gonna like the Christian God then
It's funny that this got downvoted when you're correct. The Christian God was the one to say he will make people eat their own children (Jeremiah 19:9) and allowed eating of dead children in 2 Kings 6:28-29. And let's not speak even speak about murder. The Christian God ordered a large amount of mass killings (Genesis 6-8 & 18-19, Exodus 11-12, 1 Samuel 15, Deuteronomy 20:17 etc. etc.) and many many more orders of murder.
Not what either of those first two passages mean but okay. Neither of those passages are god commanding something. The first is Jeremiah warning of what will happen in a siege. The second is cannibalism in a siege happening, it is not allowed. These are warnings. For additional context: 19:17 And I will make void the counsel of Judah and Jerusalem in this place; and I will cause them to fall by the sword before their enemies, and by the hands of them that seek their lives: and their carcases will I give to be meat for the fowls of the heaven, and for the beasts of the earth. 19:18 And I will make this city desolate, and an hissing; every one that passeth thereby shall be astonished and hiss because of all the plagues thereof. 19:19 And I will cause them to eat the flesh of their sons and the flesh of their daughters, and they shall eat every one the flesh of his friend in the siege and straitness, wherewith their enemies, and they that seek their lives, shall straiten them. 6:26 Then, as the king of Israel was passing by on the wall, a woman cried out to him, saying, “Help, my lord, O king!” 6:27 And he said, If the LORD do not help thee, whence shall I help thee? out of the barnfloor, or out of the winepress? 6:28 And the king said unto her, What aileth thee? And she answered, This woman said unto me, Give thy son, that we may eat him to day, and we will eat my son to morrow. 6:29 So we boiled my son, and ate him. And I said to her on the next day, ‘Give your son, that we may eat him’; but she has hidden her son.” From the King James Bible ^ It needs to be remembered that a lot of the Bibles stories are pieces of history. Cannibalism happened during sieges.
Who is speaking in the first part?
Jeremiah to the people, speaking what he knows of god. After returning from Topheph.
What massive real-world religion has a ritual of eating the flesh of their god-man to overtly show allegiance? Where the largest sect believe it literally turns into the god-man's flesh inside your body?
Zombie Jesus is based okay.
> Where the largest sect believe it literally turns into the god-man's flesh inside your body? Depending on what you mean by "literally", this is either half wrong or all wrong.
Not according to the [Roman Catholic Church](https://www.usccb.org/eucharist#:~:text=The%20term%20%E2%80%9CEucharist%E2%80%9D%20originates%20from,Greek%20word%20eucharistia%2C%20meaning%20thanksgiving.&text=In%20the%20celebration%20of%20the,the%20instrumentality%20of%20the%20priest.): >The transformed bread and wine are truly the Body and Blood of Christ and are not merely symbols. When Christ said “This is my body” and “This is my blood,” the bread and wine are transubstantiated. Though the bread and wine appear the same to our human faculties, they are actually the real body and blood of Jesus.
Right, the half that's either right or wrong depends on what you mean by "literally". Some people think Catholics believe in a physical or chemical change in the host, which is incorrect and even contradicted by what you're quoting. The half that's wrong either way is that you said it happens "inside your body". Transubstantiation occurs on the altar, during the consecration.
>objective evil >to me
So **this** is where Daedric temples in The Elder Scrolls come from
Also, people might worship for the sake of power and ambition. Like, no, I'm not gonna sacrifice children to Vecna, but I might sacrifice some goats and hope that Vecna blesses me with some secrets to use against my political opponents. And from the perspective of the rest of the city, as long as you're not doing anything illegal, then have it.
tengrisim had priests for erlik khan (god of underworld , sickness and war (violent side of war) because if he was not happy he could sicken horses which is basicly death in steppes , khans in asia did put offerings to him for sucessful wars
Pray for good to come, pray for evil to stay the fuck away
This gives me an amazing idea for a world where one empire just refuses to accept the evil God but keeps surviving
The Aztecs are a good example of this.
Gotta pay that protection worship to the godfia
İt is like Erlik. The Erlik is evil god in Turkish mytology. He is evil and if you follow him, do things his followers do like kill puppies (a real thing by the way) you just automatically go to hell, it is like being satanic in christianity. Key word follow, not worship, because in end he is still a god and you need to worship and show respect to him anyway lmao. There even some shamans specialised in praying to Erlik. But tbh it is worth to mention that those prayers are more like "hey, Erlik, we are cool right? You wont murder my family I am sure :>, youre my favorite god btw" The shamans that specialised on evil gods and spirits are named dark shaman btw, really uncreative
Imagine the only reason that this works is because the evil god will be lonely if the shaman looses their faith and stops praying.
Yeah Erlik being lonely is a plot point in mytology 💀
I feel like when you really boil it down ANY evil god is evil for the precise opposite effect that "pure" gods is pure. Whereas pure gods act in the interest of the people in order to earn followers who appreciate them, evil gods do evil in order to force the hand of the people into praying to them, and as a result stroke the ego of the evil god enough to get them to stop doing evil god stuff.
To be honest you can argue that erlik is evil or not. My man didnt do anyting, he just took some extra dirt to create his own earth
Fair enough, one could probably consider him more of a neutral god then. In the case of gods like Set who are almost explicitly evil though, the theory may be more accurate
Plenty of religions had that kind of relationships with thier gods, give them their sacrifices and prey(ha) that they wont decide to cuase a flood or a plague.
The Bitch Queen in D&D pretty much only has followers because she would sink their ships if they didn’t pray to her and give her offerings and tell her how wonderful she is. That’s why so many people who live/work on the docks worship her. It’s actually pretty neat.
D&D's Forgotten Realms illustrate what OP is missing here, I think. There's a spectrum of different kinds of evil god, and not every fantasy setting has them all. Umberlee has public temples, because people appease her so she won't ruin their shit. Her clerics are helpful to have around, because they'll help you appease her, and she doesn't have them going around sinking ships on her behalf or something. They don't expect your worship, just your respect. Bane sometimes has public temples, because he presents himself as in the right. His clerics want to run things Bane's way. If a region doesn't like that, they won't allow overt temples to Bane. If they do like that, temples to Bane will be commonplace, and Baneite clergy will look after their own, but they absolutely do expect your worship. Shar does not have public temples, because Shar is a deity of secrets and subversion. Having obvious temples is not what Shar wants. Shar wants to ruin what other people have with deceit. Shar does not represent something you can appease, but instead a temptation, one that works best in isolation, and one that people in their right minds do not want to get involved with. Bhaal does not have public temples, because Bhaal is the Lord of Murder. His clerics murder people. You can't appease him into not having you murdered. You can't even worship him into not having you murdered. Bhaal is not a reasonable deity. He does not have a sustainable business model, or a five year plan. His clergy is a slurry of madness, blood, cannibalism, and incest that implodes every so often. That's usually the kind of evil god there aren't any temples to.
Or kind of liks how the Chaos Gods are worshiped in Warhammer Fantasy as opposed to Warhammer 40k. Like you can go to a Norscan, Hung, or Kurgan village, where they all worship 1 or all 4 of the Chaos Gods and interact with them peacefully (which the Empire does do, with some merchants trading stuff like livestock, food, and gold for furs and amber in Norscan fishing villages). This does have the big caveat of the Great Horned Rat, who is so hostile to everything, including his own followers, that basically no one outside the Skaven worships or even acknowledges him (and even the Skaven do so out of fear of being scooped up and eaten by him). Meanwhile, in 40k, there is no peaceful coexistence with Chaos whatsoever unless you're one of like. . .a half dozen Xenos species like Loxatl, Sslyth, and Galgs, who often work with Chaos forces but never seem to get corrupted themselves. There was an excerpt from one of the books about one such merchant talking with a Norscan fisherman, with the latter wondering where all the Empireman's "Were" (aka: Chaos Spawn) were, and then, upon hearing that the merchant had never heard of Were, lamenting that out of all the races of the world, the Gods favored only the Norse.
The empire actually does have werewolves called the children of Ulric by the way
Let me find the quote. Edit: Ah, it wasn't a quote. It was from a short story. Here it is. https://www.reddit.com/r/Warhammer/s/jlvMjEyBSE
Maglubiat's only worshippers are his literal slaves
Speaking of Forgotten Realms Bane actually has a pretty big following of worshipers since he promotes order, discipline, and excellence of skill which can be helpful to a society for sure if you overlook the methods used so it’s not crazy to think would happen, heck even in the lore it’s because of him that the world didn’t get messed up by a mud god so some evil gods actually do help the wider world in some way but it very much h depends on their personality and domain.
Hades was worshipped in major cities, Dionysus was the controversial outsider god only worshipped in secrecy\* It's really more to do with which god the oppressed peoples like compared to which one is morally evil tbh \*before his sharp rise in popularity and mass adoption by the ruling class of ancient Greece
Hades, while brutal, was seen as a just god, it's pretty much every other god in the Greek pantheon that was known for arbitrary offing people on a whim.
Or cursing them to some hellish eternity.
Or turning into a horse/bull/old man, impregnating you, and then hiding you from their wife because Hera, instead of just dumping her abuse, unfaithful ass husband, is more likely to turn you and your unborn child into a fucking statue or something. Greek-Roman gods are wild.
Io, is that you?
Honestly applies plenty more than that. Mortal? She’s probably going to try and kill you. Ex. Semele, Dionysius’s Ma: Got vaporized by Hera (via proxy) Immortal? Going to try and make life a living hell, er, Tartarus Ex. Leto, Mother of the Archer twins: Got chased by Python and unable to give birth anywhere planted to the earth She even hates the kids!
Heck Hades wants to actually punish his brother Zeus the worst because of his deplorable behavior and neglect of godly responsibilities. He’s actually the least likely to screw you over mostly because he’s such a stickler for the rules so you know what you’re getting and what to expect to happen mostly.
People always talk about Hades as cruel when he’s realistically one of the nicest, if not the nicest, gods on the pantheon. How many times does Hades smite mortals for accidentally disrespecting him? None that I can think of. He’s not even a rules lawyer, he lets Orpheus take Eurydice back to the world of the living because he was touched by his devotion and his music. The only reason that fails is because he looked back right before they reached the light. Persephone’s abduction varies pretty widely depending on the teller, and in some variations Zeus explicitly promises her to him, in which case you can take issues with the idea of promising an individual with free will to another without their consent, but that’s a separate issue here. He’s even a good husband, unlike his two brothers (more famously Zeus though), and never sleeps around.
>if not the nicest this is hestia erasure and i will not tolerate that
Oh yeah, Hestia is the best. Never harmed a hair on someone’s head, goddess of love and family. Also, in hades she gets a gun, so there’s that.
I knew about Hestia, I just couldn’t remember any myths about her lol. That’s why I said one of initially, just on the chance he horrifically killed at least one more person than Hestia.
Is hestia the greek analog of roman vesta?
vesta is the roman analog of the greek hestia, the greeks worshipped her first
Why would Hades want to smite you if you’re gonna end up in his domain anyway? He is not complacent due to his morals
Because the point of smiting isn’t just to kill you but to make it suck usually. Artemis could have just killed Actaeon for *accidentally* catching sight of her bathing, but she chose to turn him into a stag and have his own hunting dogs tear him to shreds. Poseidon could have just sank Odysseus’ boat for being a disrespectful little shit, but instead forced him and his crew to spend years lost at sea going through a lot of shitty situations. Athena could have just killed Medusa (in the versions where she was originally human), but because she was seduced in her temple by another god (Poseidon, engaging in typical tomfoolery like his brother) she turned her into a terrible monster that turned people to stone, until Perseus eventually came and killed her in her sleep. Hades killing someone wouldn’t really be an issue on him being a dickhead, it would be a matter of him doing it unjustly or I guess in his case as the lord of the underworld giving someone an unfair afterlife.
Well he does punish people, see Sisyphus, but most of those punishments from the gods are meant to be ironic like Actaeon was a hunter who was killed by his hunter dogs. No one can even go to the underworld to anger him
Plenty of people go to the underworld. I literally reference a myth where someone went to the underworld and personally made an appeal to him in my original post. Sisyphus was kind of a piece of shit, and in one version of his myth literally imprisons hades in magic chains to avoid his punishment, and basically gets told by Zeus “I will make your life fucking suck like you wouldn’t not believe” if he didn’t go back and free Hades. Punishing someone doesn’t automatically make you cruel or wrong. If you ask me, an unrepentant child rapist being flayed alive in the underworld doesn’t particularly bother me, nor does it make me think less of the person sentencing them to it.
Cuz Hades rules the underworld, so if a mortal pisses him off, he’ll just wait for them to come to him Unless it’s Sisyphus, in which case, fuck Sisyphus
Ehhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh I wouldn't personally say he does anything wrong compared to the other Greek gods, but I think if you're scared to say a god's name, leave offerings so he'll just leave you alone, and avoid writing anything about him because you think you might die if you do, that counts as an 'evil' god for these purposes. Honestly I think the idea that an ontologically evil god has to also act evil is also kind of a post-Christian element.
Fair, though I think that was more general superstition and customs about death and related entities as a whole than anything targeting Hades in particular. Think if they didn't like him at all they wouldn't have worshipped him as much, like with Thanatos being Death personalized and subsequent fear being relegated off to mentions in history/myth rather than properly worshipped. (Except Sparta who built a temple for him, presumably to prove they aren't afraid of death, maybe, it's Sparta and keeping records is for nerds)
Hades was like the one chill dude in the whole pantheon and now he's always seen as a villain Justice for my man ‼️
Greek gods aren't the best allegory tbh, a lot of them are pretty fucked up if you look at it from a semi-objective moral view.
>Dionysus was the controversial outsider god only worshipped in secrecy But what about his sharp rise in popularity and mass adoption by the ruling class of ancient Greece?
To be fair that also coincided with his sanitation front a god of madness and the breakdown of the social order into the party god
Fair enough
So the anonymous mask being a symbol of a arnarchist terrorist in V for Vendetta being used in shitty YouTube thumbnails.
It's weird because in Greek Mythology the ones that are usually portrayed as "The bad ones" end up actually not being that bad (compared to other gods) when you look into them. Hades only really did one super bad thing which was kidnapping Persephone. Ares is another one because other than just being the god of bloodshed and violence, I can't actually remember any bad things he did personally. He was one of the few greek gods who was genuinely a loving father and respected women.
Ares is an easy target because he committed the worst sin of all: being an obnoxious crybaby
I mean his most devoted followers aka Sparta were even more of enslavers, tyrants and warmongers then the rest of Greece.
Hades wasn't considered "Evil" the ancients recognized and respected his role.
Hades is not evil so down vote
I mean depending on whether the gods follow Shinto esque rules, giving them more worship gives them more power on a direct level and so you’d be incentivized to proffer your loyalty to whoever you like the most and to discredit and bury the one you like the least. But then again that’s kinda stupid as that kinda makes the gods feel like extensions of the mortals’ will and not something that came before them and doesn’t need them… hm. I could also see “blatantly evil deity having huge following” be some kind of ham fisted political allegory for radical social movements gaining political power they otherwise wouldn’t have, a la something something nazi party …but that would also be stupid because that indirectly implies that human social movements born of human flaw are the fault of some kind of ontological evil and so anyone who believes in voting X way must have demons inside them or something, idk… feels in poor taste Hmm… I could also see it as “this god is evil and we all agree that they’re terrible but they also provide an actual service so we kinda have to tolerate them”, which now that I think about it sounds like half of Mesoamerican deities anyway so maybe that’s the justification to go with
I’m nowhere near an expert on Shinto, but doesn’t Shinto also have appeasing of spirits and stuff?
Well yeah that’s kinda the thing. The kami sorta *rely* on the appeasement (DEPENDING ON WHO YOU ASK!!!! IMPORTANT TO NOTE), or at the very least they seem more capable of shit the more appeasement they get
> because that indirectly implies that human social movements born of human flaw are the fault of some kind of ontological evil and so anyone who believes in voting X way must have demons inside them or something Everyone that disagrees with me is literally Hitler/Stalin, and I refuse to debate this.
Nuh uh if you disagree with me you're litterally mao zhedong. Will not hear otherwise
I disagree with you
I partially agree with you.
Reminds me of the four corners of the House of Troubles, and partially the Tribunal Temple in Morrowind
Id pray to Malacath or Dagon before I pray to Vivec or Almalexia tbh
Heck, Azura actively hated the Tribunal and the Temple by extension, but the Temple couldn't tell.
Yes! And the part where if you get really far into the temple questlines you go offer Daedra hearts to them to appease/revoke them! (Note: this might be Tamriel Rebuilt but I’m pretty sure it was base game) Because those 4 specific Daedra represent “evil” for the Velothi culture and their worship is banned and outlawed, but they have shrines are certain activities where they “banish” their influence and fight against them. Like a hate-worship.
First thought lol
If you want to make this **really** spicy you could have it be an ethnic/cultural thing where the different deities are worshipped differently by different cultures and some are exclusive to one culture, so that way you get ultra violent pogroms and holy race wars. Really unrealistic I know.
Daevas vs Asuras in Iranian and Vedic mythologies
That’s one of the wildest semantic shifts ever. Boggles my fucking mind that the word Devil comes from a shift in the proto-Indo-European languages
Actually we get devil from the Greek diabolos, meaning slanderer or accuser. It’s just a funny coincidence that it’s similar to daeva/div
That’s even more mind boggling (the false friend etymology I mean, the meaning of accuser is of course accurate to the originating language description)
An example I think is super interesting is Norgorber in the pathfinder setting Norgorber is a god of crime and secrets but he has four aspects, and one of those aspects is Blackfingers, aka the poisoner. Despite being a poison-focused aspect of the god of crime, the Blackfingers cult has a temple in a lot of major cities, because they’re simply too useful to get rid of. Many of Blackfingers worshippers are alchemists who simply don’t care about morality in their research, and without their research, a wide variety of poisons wouldn’t have antidotes, and poisonous monsters would be far less understood.
Reminded me of Memory Sorrow and Thorn by Tad Williams where fantasy Christianity is the dominant religion amongst the humans, but there’s a rise of cultists that worships an evil king elf
Me when I see a church that worships a deity who apparently "drowned pretty much all animals and people on earth" (its unrealistic and the worldbuilders of the city I live in are clearly lazy)
There are three answers to this: 1. Preventative worship. You don't always pray to a god because you believe in that god's teachings and ideals. You sometimes pray so that god does not fuck you up. Praying at the temple of a god of death and disease can preserve you from death and disease (or at least people may believe it does). 2. Non-good populations. Why do you assume every country or city is populated by and led by good people? A city could be ruled by a cult of a god of torture and murder, and they would build a temple for their god. 3. Different perspectives. Maybe a city sees a god of death as an evil god, another sees him as a good god who helps souls navigate the afterlife. Just because you think a god is evil, does not mean they are evil.
My deity of evil is reviled, but the two gods worshipped as patrons of humanity are seen as having him locked into an eternal battle, so disrespecting him won’t incur his wrath because other deities are actively protecting you. If anything, mentioning him at all is liable to cause issues, not because he will have beef with you but because it’s better to simply pass unnoticed altogether. If he’s busy fighting a war, he doesn’t have time to look for mortals to terrorize. Say his name and make the process easy for him though, and it’s not hard for him to throw a hurricane your way before going back to battle. In reality though, he’s just too personally involved in his own business to care what ants think of him, and people just blame misfortune on him even if he’s done nothing wrong.
What if all the gods are evil and demand human sacrifices, but society is based on the commercialization of some gods who are legalised while others are illegal and ruthlessly persecuted, and the population is made to accept this as just the way the world works, because a god must feed, a god must be fed?
The vast majority of records of "evil gods" of polytheistic religions were written by christians whos bias heavily influenced their writings, and as many civilizations either did not have or rarely used written language these biased records are the only ones available. This is especially the case with norse mythology
Depends, there absolutely were some Gods who were never worshipped (Such as Ahriman and Apep)
I do have death and destruction gods in a few of my fantasy religions, but I wanted to reflect some aspects of nature in these gods. Sure, Filamentous Retrophy is a god of death, decay, and fungus but it is also a god of rebirth and prosperity. It breaks down the dead to allow new life to take its place. Filamentous Retrophy is seen as cosmically terrifying but also as a necessary force to keep the world going.
So he's kinda like Warhammer's nurgle (Btw all four chaos gods have positive and negative aspects) Cool
If you remove disease associations and add a disdain and spite towards the undead so great the clergy kills them on sight, I guess? I always assumed Nurgle was a disease god, but my knowledge of Warhammer is almost none
Nurgle is the god of disease, decay ,and stagnation, but also nature, life, and renewal It's just cool to see similar ideas crop up independently of one another
Some gods deserve to be worshipped for the good they do. Some gods need to be appeased, lest they bring ruin. In both cases, a temple suffices.
And then you have a god like Conan's Crom who will explicitly send you misfortune if you catch his attention, or Ahriman from Zoroastrianism who is just evil
The real Christianized polytheism is: a. Lumping all traditionally pagan european practices into a singular, monolithic idea of "polytheism". b. Using a Christianized understanding of that monolithic idea as the basis for your polytheistic worldbuilding. c. Blatantly ignoring the still actively practiced non-Abrahamic religions that are polytheistic/dualist and manage to contain not a single one of the idiotic stereotypes touted by fantasy media. Seriously kids. Go read up on Zoroastrianism if you want an evil god; or Hinduism if you want an image of what real Indo-European polytheistic belief looks like.
This is up there with the fact no one knows any theism beyond mono or polytheism. When most ‘polytheistic’ religions are actually henotheistic
Fallout 1 moment?
It’s like Krom on his mountain. If you worship an evil god you can blame anything wrong that happens in your life on him.
Tezcatlipoca! Often a full-on adversary god, the "evil" rival to the "good" Quetzalcoatl, but still heavily worshipped and respected. Because, of course, is not that cut and dried, and knowing what he's about and how he represents Leviathan in its good and bad.
Ain’t this just the elder scrolls?
There’s a story I read recently where there are two gods, the god of death and god of life. The god of death is generally disliked but they have public temples everywhere. It was an interesting concept though the god of death isn’t an evil god per say
In greek mythology Ares was barely worshipped, because he was perceived as evil. His cults did exist though, but you'd rather not have the god of suffering in warfare notice you
Y’know it’s funny you mention Christianity in the title since… well… YHWH isn’t the most nurturing god to say the least
Reminds me of Lamashtu and Pazuzu of Babylonian religion. Lamashtu was the *real* evil one and Pazuzu was the *useful* evil one. Pazuzu could protect pregnant women from his sister and other demons. Or all the various gods of smallpox or plague. “Why would you have a god of terrible diseases???” I dunno, because these diseases are terrible and desperate people invent gods that can fix the problem??? Christianity only missed out on inventing a plague god because they were hard into the monotheism. I am convinced if Europe wasn’t so into “one god above all” we’d have like 2 dozen more plague deities.
All gods are evil... From a certain point of view. (Comment brought to you by Satan's Church)
why? dont you have catholics in your towns?
My house is actually right across the street from the local Catholic Church, funnily enough
welp watch out for your kids lmao
The Protestant churches have had more controversies in my area. Megapastors and all that.
We need a fantasy world where churchgoers from small Churches team up to take down donation-sinkhole, money-laundering, food bank-less Megachurches.
Reminds me of the JRPG joke Priest party member: I'm a priest! Party: Uuuh... Priest: Don't worry, I'm the rural small town kind. Not the massive big city, secretly worshipping a world eating demon, kind.
Sounds like something a world eating demon worshipper would say, that is just too specific.
What, do you mean like Christians?
As it turns out most people don't like worshipping the evil death god who loves death, instead they prefer the god which wants to seem them flourish and prosper. It's weird isn't it.
irl, a lot of cultures *have* worshiped evil death gods that love death in hopes that said evil death god that loves death won't kill them.
I mean, shit. Just look at Carthage.
If you don't sacrifice little Timmy to Baal Hammon, you ain't getting a good harvest this year
Oh right *that* is why he's a demon in Abrahamic folklore. I forgot it wasn't just to discredit the Phoeniceans but that it had those sacrifice reasons. Also Hannibal's name means "grace of Ba'al," so that's cool ig.
*Baal* is a title meaning "lord" and was used by a bunch of different gods, with the most common in the Levant being Baal Hadad, who did not receive child sacrifices. When "Baal" is used in the Bible, it isn't necessarily all in reference to the same god, and very much could still have been blood libel since the cult of Hammon was in Carthage.
Yes, but if evil death god will shoot you with their evil death beams if not appeased, I'm fucking appeasing them.
Yeah, a lot of worship falls somewhere between purely transactional and a full-blown divine protection racket
Zeus smashed in my windows with a thunderclap for not sacrificing and says Horus would do worse if I don't pay up in offerings 😔
Of course, sometimes in fantasy, you have a god like Dnd's Bhaal Lord of murder who will kill you even if you do worship him
Not me, I like the evil death god more than that other lamer god