Religion of Evil: Difference between revisions
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*** Hextor's church falls between this and [[Path of Inspiration]]. Where his clerics have power, they openly preach his creed of militarism, conquest and tyranny. In other places, they claim he's a god of fitness, discipline and strength.
** Subverted in ''[[Eberron]]'' with the death/ancestor worship of the Aerenal Elves. Plenty of trappings that would be red flags in most settings (skull motifs, efforts of worshippers to look more dead, fallen troops remaining on duty) but they are as benevolent (if somewhat less universalist) as the Silver Flame (not counting the [[Knight Templar]]s in the organization).
** ... And then played straight with the Blood of Vol. Uncharacteristically, the setting information tries to be fair to those guys, despite their obvious black-hat practices like human sacrifice, necromancy, and immortality experiments. The cult's guiding moral philosophy is explained at great length and often from a sympathetic perspective; the faithful truly believe that this life is a torment and undeath is an acceptable escape. It's almost too bad the cult was founded by a diabolically evil lich who is using it for her own nefarious ends. [[Word of God|Turns out]] she co-opted a pre-existing faith, and repackaged it into something more organized, and under her control. Due to the nature of the divine in ''Eberron'', it's entirely possible for genuinely good (if duped) true believers to gain spells from the faith.
** The Dark Six are a classical pantheon of evil deities cast away from the main pantheon... and [[Chaotic Neutral|The Traveller]]. It's possibly subverted, as the Dark Six [[Unreliable Narrator|could be]] ''gods of nature'' that were removed from the Sovereign Host not because they were evil, but because the Sovereign Host was becoming the religion of civilization. Which, together with Eberron's Absent Deities-situation, leads to their evil possibly being a result of the Dark Six-worshippers gradually, over the ages, beginning to believe the propaganda spread about their deities.
** A better example of being played straight is the typical Khyber Cult. They don't worship Khyber, just [[Eldritch Abomination|whatever]] they run across.
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