Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site lanl-a.UUCP
Path: utzoo!linus!decvax!harpo!floyd!cmcl2!lanl-a!bb
From: bb@lanl-a.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.games.frp
Subject: Deities, magic, Oaths (one DM's opinion)
Message-ID: <2390@lanl-a.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 4-Oct-83 13:25:25 EDT
Article-I.D.: lanl-a.2390
Posted: Tue Oct  4 13:25:25 1983
Date-Received: Fri, 7-Oct-83 00:57:27 EDT
Organization: Los Alamos National Laboratory
Lines: 50

Laura plays that there are Oaths that powerful beings can make that
they would not like to break.  There is precedent for this in Greek
Mythology -- swearing by the river Styx or by the head of Zeus was 
about the only thing a God or Goddess could do to make a mortal believe
something.  Although my players have never met anything more powerful
than a planetar and Tiamat (and these only briefly) and have never
had much communication with deities, I would say that CE's like 
the demon princes could not by their very nature make such an Oath
and be expected to live up to it.  The Greeks never said what would
happen if a God broke this Oath so it's up to us to think of suitable
punishments.

I would say that if a Greek God broke an Oath, Zeus the Father, the Fates
and the Furies would all know instantly and Zeus would hurl the offending
deity to Tarterus for eternal torment.  The same sort of thing holds true
for other pantheons with a leader God like Zeus, Ra, Odin.  Actually Odin
is interesting, he and the Aesir broke several Oaths, that those acts
doomed them to Gotterdamurung (sp).  Devils can be bound by Oaths, as
can all Lawfuls.  Neutrals and Chaotics can be if their pantheon has 
some higher authority figure to punish them.  The CEs are a different
story.  Compared to the Greek Gods for example, the Demon Princes are a 
pretty weak lot, though they are a great number of them.  By definition
they have no superior types to punish them for misdeeds, they are not
a pantheon with historical roots.  So it seems OK to me to let the CEs 
be themselves and let the unfortunate character beware when dealing with
them!  

Actually I am more inclined to play the DP's as weaker than they are 
stated in the MM.  The Deities and Demigods has something about the
princes -- some are lesser deities, some are only demi-gods, etc.  I
think that although individually powerful, the DP's really aren't of
God-like stature, not individually as powerful as the Arch-Dukes of
Hell.  They are many many of them though, and many many tough and
powerful lesser beings in the Abyss that serve the DP and augment his
power.  (Well, they may be on par with the Arch-Dukes, but not greater.)


Someone said something like deities are the source of magic, thus the
source of wishes.  I don't play that way, though D&D is certainly playable
that way.  I will publish something I've written for my campaign as
background material later that will fully outline the cosmology I
invented to fill in the gaps TSR left when they presented the Multiverse.
I'm not saying that a God can't give a wish, just that the 9th level
MU spell doesn't come from a God, but that it, like all MU spells, is
something like a special purpose tool that consumes magic just like 
a tool that requires energy to be useful, and that magic is much like
energy in the way it behaves.  

b2 ...ucbvax!lbl-csam!lanl-a!bb  Bryan Bingham