The Good, the Bad, Gods and Spirits of Alidor

I have been writing about gods for Alidor and one of my players asked why I don’t have any evil gods yet? I mean, I have one greedy god named Yol, but Yol is not evil like the evil gods of other popular RPGs. Yol is greedy yes, but in a corporate banker way; he is no Michael Myers, nor are any of his followers, well maybe, one or two could be, but they are the outliers.

To me evil is like the most deadly virus out there; say, like ebola, it gets into the human population and kills so quickly that it dies out becoming dormant again. It does so because it is actually too efficient at killing people. Because ebola kills it’s host so fast, the chances of it spreading to another host decreases as the population density decreases, so it never becomes an epidemic or pandemic. So evil is out there, but it is like ebola, it is obvious and horrifying and it spreads death quickly and efficiently. Evil can lay dormant for years locked in a prison or spread apart in many pieces that can be collected by players or NPCs. Once evil breaks out into the world it is always obvious to the players, thus keeping them employed chasing this evil or that.

I should say that I have a strong belief that evil is beatable and gods are, by their nature unbeatable, so evil in my home game, can lead to one great and powerful being, but that being has to be beatable in some way or another, by way of some special mechanic in the game. I feel that this is important part of game design, in the end the big bad has to be put down by the players. It may take multiple times, but once the party figures out what must be done, then it is just up to the dice the determine success, not some “Boxed Text” stating the foe can not be killed. –Yuck

For this reason, evil gods do not exist in Alidor, in their place I have evil spirits or arimen. These beings can be outcasts, or some sort of waste of the gods, possibly an experiment gone wrong. what ever the case they are pure evil and in the World of Alidor they are called arimen. They are nearly immortal requiring some sort of sacrificial energy to exist. Without energy, they fade into shadow or some extremely basic form until placed back in contact with whatever energy they need. Some may require a drop of blood during special ceremonies, others power themselves off of negative thoughts and fear possibly using dungeons and crypts to channel this energy to them. Because they are not divine, they can not help players or NPCs by granting spells, but they can help by giving information and this the primary way they attract followers and food; by acting as conduits of knowledge.

Chief among all evil spirits of Alidor is Pagdush Firethrower, he is no ebola virus like so many other arimen are; he has learned patience and has adapted to grow slowly in the world like the flu virus; from hand shake, to cough he spreads slowly and surely, feeding on the week and the old. Pagdush uses subterfuge artfully as a disguise to trick the simple minded and to confound the educated. He allows the strong to live and spread his influence, that is why he is revered by orcs. He speaks to them of the days when the orcs ruled the world, long before the dragons or the elves had ever existed. He tells his true followers the future, and warns them of the plans of their enemies. He teaches them the arts, the languages and the mannerisms of the worlds lesser races, so they will know how best to defeat them, but only if they sacrifice an eye and swear fealty to him and only him. Yeah he is my big bad. But he is not he only one. And he can be defeated, caged or canned by clever players and has been in the past.

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