How to Win the Dawn War

In my quest to become the Worst OSR Writer, I have decided to run a game of Dungeons and Dragons Fourth Edition. 4e was released in 2008. That's 16 years ago! Clearly it has passed into the realm of "Old School" gaming, and is due for a Renaissance. 4e presents a good ludonarrative resonance, I believe, for a specific type of game. It does very badly at simulating medieval fantasy life, but does a great job of simulating cartoons about simulations of medieval fantasy life; that is to say, I hypothesize it does a great job with Isekai anime.

I always liked the 4e gods ("The Dawn War Pantheon"), even if I did not, in my youth, enjoy 4e, as I said in my previous post, which I shall now entirely disregard. However, I noticed that there is an issue when constructing a 4e Isekai game: Your main churchy gods of good, Bahamut and Pelor, are gods. The JRPG standard dictates that your benevolent good guy church must worship a goddess, or several. So a gender-swap is needed (and fits perfectly to patterns exemplified in, for instance, the Fate series). This set off a cascade of thoughts that might make the Dawn War Pantheon more interestingly boring (boringly interesting?).

The Pelor you wanted

In honor of 4e, I've sectioned this post into Lore DCs, a much beloved 4e staple. If you are going to play in my 4e game, read DC 10 and DC 15 only, the rest is spoilers. Content Warning for Divine-Typical freakiness.

The Pelor you got

DC 10

There are ten gods that rule the world:

Pelora, goddess of the Sun; Bahamat, goddess of Justice; Avandros, god of Luck; Moradi, goddess of the Forge; Erathus, god of Law; Ioun, god of Knowledge; Kord, goddess of Strength; Melor, god of Nature; Sehanine, goddess of the Moon; and the Raven Prince, god of Death.

There are seven lords that rule hell:

Ashmadeva, goddess of Evil; Lolth, goddess of Darkness; Vecna, goddess of Secrets; Bane, goddess of Conquest; Torog, goddess of Torture; Zehira, goddess of Poisons; and Tiamut, god of Greed.

The seventeen gods fought in a war at the dawn of time against the primordials, beings of elemental chaos that would have destroyed the world. They won, and now the world exists, and the gods fight within it for the spirits of mortals. Each race has its own god, who made it. Moradi made the dwarves, Sehanine made the eladrin, Avandros made the fauns, Bahamat made the dragonborn, and Ashmadeva made the cursed Tieflings. No one knows who made humanity. Most people think it was probably Erathus, or Pelora, or Melor, or the Raven Prince.

Whatever the case, pretty well everyone except the dwarves and the dragonborn mixed up together and that where you get halflings and half-elves and elves (though, "true" elves are born from the mixing of Eladrin and Fauns specifically)

There are a few other things, like how the orcs have no god, and only worship their warlord, but that covers most of everything.

DC 15

There are eleven gods that rule the world:

Pelora, goddess of the Sun, Life, and Family. She is the mother of men and angels, the god of six heavens, and by far the most popular god in creation. She is worshiped by the Church of the Sun, which teaches good old fashioned values, like love, honesty, and the ruthless eradication of the undead, demons, and devils. She is a little picky that you worship her only, but she is still friendly with the other gods. If you do well in her service, she will bring you to one of the heavens, where you will enjoy countless delights. There are many demigods of Pelora, and many saints and angels in her service. She also has avatars abroad in many forms, as men and women of all ages. You may recognize them by their golden hair, golden eyes, and unearthly beauty.

Bahamat, goddess of Justice, Nobility, and Dragons. She is the mother of dragons and the dragonborn, the god of the seventh heaven, the platinum dragon. She is worshiped by the Adamantine Order, the greatest order of knights and paladins in the world. Bahamat encourages strict discipline and paragon goodness. She is the greatest enemy of evil and chaos. She lives in the Amethyst Citadel in the northernmost parts of the world. She is served by the good dragons, the dragons of gold, silver, copper, iron, tin, mercury, and lead. They say there is a secret to becoming a dragonborn, known only to the Adamantine Order.

Avandros, god of Luck, Travel, and Pleasure. He is the father of fauns and elves, king of the fairies, and the patron of adventurers. Of all the gods who are, according to popular canon, good, Avandros is the most fickle. He is married (for a certain, non-exclusive definition of married) to Sehanine. Avandros possesses no divine domain of his own, sharing Sehanine's. Most inns (and brothels) are temples of Avandros, started by great adventurers who decided to settle down. Avandros is more often served by warlocks than by clerics, and is, of course, one of the two original granters of the Fey Pact. He travels the world in many guises. Fauns and Satyrs are his demigods, mostly male, and he sired almost all of them himself.

Moradi, goddess of the Forge, Craft, and Loyalty. She is the mother of dwarves. This, contrary to popular belief, is not a literal statement. There are female dwarves besides Moradi, and they are very important, the matriarchs of the mines, but they are both hidden from outsiders and look very similar to male dwarves. Moradi was instrumental in laying the literal foundations of the world, using sheer strength and skill to form bedrock from primordial chaos. Despite this, she's mainly worshiped only by dwarves, and really doesn't mind. Dwarves are her perfect creation, the completed form of the prototype known as ants. Moradin invented many things, from swords to weaving, but she is very selfless, and gave most of her inventions to other gods. 

[Digression]

Mechanically, Eladrin and Fauns are identical, except Fauns get a bonus to Dex and must choose between Charisma and Intelligence, and get a +2 to Nature and Bluff. Demigods of Pelora are mechanically just humans

[/Digression]

These are the gods that are known to all as the gods of Good. There are seven gods that remain neutral:

Erathus, god of Law, Civilization, and Technology. He is father of men. His divine domain is Erathus, the One City. To all knowledge, he has only one demigod, Erathus Rex, god-king of Erathus. Unlike most demigods, he is apparently immortal. I don't need to type all this up, just imagine Solomon David from Kill Six Billion Demons. That's exactly what both Erathus and Erathus Rex look and act like. Erathus built the Inevitables to act as their servants.

Ioun, god of Knowledge, Prophecy, and the Stars. They are the god of wizards, and the wizard of gods. Before Ioun came, there were no wizards, only clerics and warlocks, but Ioun taught the secrets of arcane magic to men. Ioun was not originally a god. They were, originally, a star, but they fell to earth. Ioun has no demigods, and has only one avatar, in which they appear as a robed and shadowy mage with a strange inner light. Their domain is the Tower of Art, surrounded by the Academy of Stars, of which they are the often absent headmaster.

Melor, god of Nature, the Ocean, and Animals. He is the father of monsters and spirits, and made Lakal, the World Tree. His domain is pretty much everywhere that doesn't have another god squatting on it. Melor has two avatars: Behemoth and Leviathan. Almost nobody worships Melor, unless they want an earthquake or tsunami or something. Druids and other primal types worship his children, the Primal Spirits. These aren't demigods, they are godlings, the children of Melor and the World Tree. His demigods, which he does not hesitate to sire, are the monsters that plague men. It is his job to protect nature, which often means crushing humans.

Kord, goddess of Strength, Courage, and Storms. She is the mother of Barbarians. Melor used to have three avatars, until Kord killed Anzu, the thunderbird, and ate it.

Sehanine, goddess of the Moon, Illusions, and Love. She is the mother of Eladrin and Elves, queen of the fairies. Sehanine's domain is the Lambent Forest, also called the Forest of the Moon or Fairyland, a dark forest dotted with glowing crystals. It is the home of the Eladrin, her demigods, mostly female, along with the fauns and the fairies. Within this forest is Melliora, the City of the Elves. While eladrin and fauns are the demigods of Sehanine and Avandros respectively, and elves are the children of those two races, fairies are the children of Sehanine and Avandros with one another, godlings in their own right, and numerous. In the Lambent Forest, these creatures mix, and lines become very blurred.

The Raven Prince, god of Death and Winter. He has no children. He appears as a young, handsome man to those who are dying, and they offer him a last prayer. Only few gods are known to have the power to take the spirit after death: Pelor and Bahamat might take the spirit to be reincarnated in their heavens, while Ashmadeva might claim them for hell, and Ioun might request them for study. However, these are only temporary, and everyone goes to the Raven Prince in the end.

Gruumsh the one-eyed is the warlord of the orcs and goblins. She is, or was, also the goddess of slaughter, one of the gods of hell. The story goes like this:

"Gruumsh was never a genial goddess, and once insulted Avandros during the Dawn War. Avandros took his bow and put out her eye. To spite him, Gruumsh took some elves and fauns and tortured them, corrupting them into her perfect warriors. Thus began the wars of elves and orcs. Gruumsh was so enamored with her "creations" that she devoted all her focus to them. They were very simple: they wanted war, and bloodlust, and victory. Humans were much more complicated, and had scruples about hearing lamentations of women and such."
"Before she knew it, she was so surrounded with idiot worshipers that she became an idiot herself. Her avatars and their warbands began to fight each other for fun, and now she is so weak that she is barely a goddess, possessing one avatar, the immortal warlord of the orcs. When she gets enough power, she immediately makes another avatar to spread more war, but her avatars just end up fighting again. An embarrassment to hell, they exiled her to the Fields of Blood on the mortal world."

There are seven lords that rule hell:

Ashmadeva, goddess of Evil and Tyranny, the Commander of Hell. She is the mother of tieflings and devils, and rules the lowest and worst part of hell. She (or rather, her emissaries) makes deals with mortals, conscripting their souls for hell's army in exchange for power.

Lolth, goddess of Darkness and Spiders, the Governor of Hell. She is the mother of the drow and the driders, and rules the borders of hell and the underdark. The drow pay their tithes to hell in food, blood, gold, and captives.

Vecna, goddess of Secrets and Necromancy, the Scholar of Hell. She is the spiritual mother of liches, and rules the Necropolis of Knowledge. As everyone knows, her greatest servants are her hand and her eye.

Bane, goddess of Conquest and Strategy, the Captain of Hell. She rules the Slaughter Grounds. She was once a mortal student of Gruumsh before the warlord fell from grace, so to speak, but she has now surpassed her master in every way. Some warlords of the mortal world pay tribute to her.

Torog, goddess of Torture and Biomancy, the Sergent of Hell. She rules the Hell of Hooks and Nails, where she experiments on mortal spirits. She is the god of hell most likely to kidnap the living, and it is held that merely saying her name will draw her to you.

Zehira, goddess of Poison and Conspiracy, the Spymaster of Hell. She rules the Lake of Sulphur from atop her tower, and her children are the Yuan-ti.

Tiamut, god of Greed and Dragons, the Treasurer of Hell. He is the father of dragons, who took form when his seed spilled upon the elemental chaos. Bahamat is his child, but she and her children rebelled and redeemed herself from her birth.

[Digression]

Heaven and Hell and the other divine realms are, for the most part, physical locations in the world that you can totally get to. The seven heavens are 7 cloud palace paradises*. Hell is below the underdark.

*Actually, one of them is the Sun. Relatedly, the Lambent Forest is technically on the Moon, despite the fact that you can walk right into it.

[/Digression]

But there is one more god, neither of the earth nor of hell: Tharizdun, the traitor god, the elder eye, the father and mother of demons, the chained one. He was imprisoned in the elemental chaos for a crime committed in the Dawn War, and longs to be free to destroy the world. His progeny afflict the world, and even the devils fight against them.

Spoilers past this point

DC 20

The Dawn War never ended. How could it? The Elemental Chaos is simply too vast, at least three times the size of the world, if not infinite. If you go to the edge of the earth and look over, it is just seething entropy further than the horizon. The gods are still fighting. Perhaps not desperately, for chaos acts against itself as often as it attacks the world, but they are not at peace.

The Pelor you got :(

Pelora has not had so many demigods without reason. I mean, she is certainly a horny bastard, but there's a purpose when her avatars solicit sex after healing your cancer. She is making an army. On earth, her demigods become her clerics, or get nepotism'd into another priesthood. If they become powerful enough, she spirits them away to her heavens to serve her as warriors and consorts.

There are three things called angels: Angels with a capital A, faceless, ethereal, terrifying embodiments of primordial good, who occasionally serve gods; Archangels, the godling children of Pelora and other gods who shall remain unnamed, and the angels of Pelora, the children of the goddess and her own demigods. Of the last, there are three kinds: Archons, who lead armies and, ahem, produce more angels with the goddess; Seraphs, who do battle with the forces of chaos; and Cherubs, who are either too weak, too young, or too old to perform active service, and therefore tend heavenly orchards or herd golden sheep to feed the armies. Don't get it wrong, Pelora loves all of them, and loves all people in general. Even in her divine supersoldier program, everyone is cared for tenderly in a literal paradise. It's just, there's a war going on, you know?

Bahamat thinks this is repulsive. Firstly the incest, but secondly, copulating with lesser races? Disgusting! Sure, we should protect the mortals, but there are better ways of going about it! Take, for instance, her dragonborn, produced by directly improving upon humans, rather than sullying the divine blood. Put them in a stone egg, expose them to the sacred fires for about a year or so, and they come out as though they'd never known the weakness of flesh at all. Bahamat and Pelora, despite their public alliance, are bitter rivals, and think each other as wicked as any of those gods that dwell in the Pit.

Avandros, Sehanine, and their fairy children are a little more lackadaisical about the war. They'll sometimes pop into the elemental chaos themselves, but only for a bit of sport. According to the other gods, they've grown far too puckish to care, and if they have any sort of plan, they haven't let it slip yet. Allegedly, they've taken to collecting odd bits of sentiment: dreams, love stories, adventures, children...

Moradi is long dead, or at least missing. Some say she went the way of Gruumsh, pouring too much into or getting too little out of her people, the dwarves. Others say she sequestered herself within them, each dwarf containing a minuscule shard of her power. Whatever the case, her clerics seem to still function, but are restricted to dwarves and those who are strongly dwarvish. The dwarves still produce legendary artifacts, deep within their mountain citadels.

Erathus and Melor have, together, the strongest claim for the creation of humanity, the greatest weapon of the gods. The spirits of men are like seeds taking root in the desert, holding the world firm and slowly imparting fertility and law. At their deaths, the Raven Prince, who was once a man himself but was raised to godhood for the purpose, disintegrates their spirit, scattering it like seeds to take new root in the bodies of new mothers. The greatest spirits produce thousands of seeds, but are also powerful in themselves as warriors against chaos. For this reason, the Compact of Spirits was made, to preserve for a time the greatest spirits in the heavens or the hells.

(Avandros, who is the main source of this information since it occurred before the arrival of Ioun, says that Erathus and Melor made humans during a brief and tumultuous, but passionate, affair. He is probably lying.)

Kord, The Raven Prince, Vecna, and Bane are the four gods who were once human. When Kord killed Anzu, Melor promised to share a third of his domain with her on the condition that she never do that again. Bane was given Gruumsh's vacant position by Ashmadeva. Vecna was a student of Ioun, but stole from them the secret of godhood. The circumstances of the Raven Prince's ascension are a very well kept secret.

There is, however, a fifth who was "mortal", so to speak, and ascended to godhood: Lakal, the world tree, was a godling of peace and beauty born of Melor and Pelora. The story is obscure as to whether she became a god before becoming a tree, and whether becoming the world tree was a punishment or a privilege. Despite her being truly a divine being like any god, she cannot answer prayers or grant powers. Because she is a tree.

Ioun, as is commonly known, was indeed once a star. What is not commonly known is that the stars are the bright guises of the entities of the Astral Sea, also called the Far Realm, beings of dreadful and incomprehensible thought. As a star, they were known as Caiphon, Ulthar, or Yoharneth-Lahai. They were curious regarding the world, and the great elder gods exiled them into it for their curiosity. The great, radiant bulk of their body lies beneath the Academy of Stars, buried by leagues of earth. 

(Ioun, of course, allowed Vecna's ascension. When asked, they said "[She] is the most intelligent being in this world, by far. Except for me, of course. But you'll have to grow up sometime.")

As for Gruumsh, one might wonder: is there such a thing as a good orc? In a sense, there is. But it is very rare. The Fields of Blood, you see, are impenetrably cursed. The whole expanse is haunted by millions of furious orc ghosts. Even the Raven Prince can no longer handle them, as they are so numerous that he might have to devote a century to the task at the expense of the whole world. When an orc is born in the Fields of Blood, dozens of orc ghosts latch onto their weak spirit and hold on with terrifying vigor, propelling the orc throughout its life in pursuit of sheer bloodlust. It would take an Archangel of Pelora to exorcise a single orc, and that might expend their power for a week.

Orcs born outside the Fields of Blood are not thus possessed, and are known as Half-Orcs (lacking half of what makes an orc). Many are known to lead very decent, even heroic lives, and they often devote themselves to Bahamat, Avandros, or Kord.

The duties of Ashmadeva and the rest of the gods of hell are, I hope, by this point obvious. Hell is the front lines of the War. Ashmadeva is the commander of the armies of hell, and Bane is her captain and strategist. Vecna and Torog search out new secrets and create soldiers to bolster the army. Zehira ensures the politics of the world do not interfere with hell's goals, and Lolth manages the home front, so to speak. Tiamut finances and, of course, makes dragons, the elite artillery of hell. (That thing about his "seed" is a lie he tells to stupid warlocks to piss off his sister. He makes them the old fashioned way.)

Devils of Ashmadeva (analogous in many ways to the Angels of Pelora), of course, get loose from time to time and cause havoc, so the good gods send them back to hell where they belong. Even if the gods of the world and the gods of hell are on the same side, you may be assured that the gods of hell are Evil. They are, to be certain, not Evil for Evil's sake. They are evil because they have no qualms, no scruples about the lives of humans or each other. They are utterly merciless, and have neither the time nor the energy for "happiness". Torture makes the troops fight. The goal of hell is to make carving a bloody path through the infinite fire-acid-claustrophobia of the Elemental Chaos the easy way out.

[Digression]

What is a Deva? A Deva is a member of the exceedingly rare constructed race known as the Imdeva. They possess strange bodies and spirits that may reincarnate fully formed in the domain of their patron, though they lose a great part of their spirit in the process. They tend towards extremes of good and evil. They were invented by the Sisters, Ashmadeva and Pelodeva.

[/Digression]

Tharizdun is truly said to be the father and mother of demons. The lie of Tiamut is truth in his case. It is commonly said that Tharizdun was an evil god seduced (literally?) by the Elemental Chaos, and his seed, the demonseed, grew into the Abyss, a tumor of evil beneath hell. But some say that he descended into the Elemental Chaos for some other motive. Some believe he was a god of Mercy, and sought to end the dawn war. Others that he was a god of trickery, and sought to turn the enemy against itself (and some say he succeeded). Others say he was a god of both life and death, and the gods were jealous of his power. Whatever the case, when he descended, the gods imprisoned him, and now there is no doubt as to his hatred and madness. The gods are silent on the truth.

DC 25

Here is a children's story that Ioun tells to his favorite students:

"Once, there was a man. We shall call him He-Who-Was, it is as good a name as any. He-Who-Was lived in a great city of light and darkness, where there lived many strange people who thought strange thoughts you would never ever think of. He-Who-Was thought many strange thoughts too, but they are things you might think of. He loved, above all things, multiplicity, and contradiction, and wonders, and he thought of things like law and chaos, good and evil, trees and cities."

"It happened one day that he met a woman, who we shall call the Lady. She loved simplicity, and logic, and was very strict. He-Who-Was fell in love immediately, because he loved contradiction, and she thought of all the things he couldn't think of. If he thought of colors, she thought of greys. If he thought of a billion, she thought of one. The Lady, it happens, loved him too, for he was only one thing, even if there was so many things in him. And He-Who-Was decided that they should move out of the city, and build a little place, a cottage in the wild places, away from the strange ideas of the city. It would be a place where there would only be the two of them, and their ideas."

"The people in the city laughed at him, because he went to live in the wild places and did not listen to their ideas, and they still laugh at him today. The beasts in the wilderness hated him, because he did not stay in the city, and brought his strange ideas to invade the wild places. But his cottage was strong, and far from the city, and the two of them lived happily."

"In time, He-Who-Was and the Lady had two daughters, twins. The Lady was horrified, and angry, because she wanted only He-Who-Was. She wanted one, and now there were three. She wanted the two of them to live together, and now there were four. Before she could think, she struck her husband, and tore him straight in two. To her shock, out of him came two sons, leaving the shell of his body behind. She could stay no longer, for the cottage was too full now of children and regret. She fled away, and built herself another cottage, even smaller and apart."

"The children were alone, and forced to keep the cottage against the wild beasts and hide from the strange city-folk. But the Lady was not heartless (though she would not like my saying so). So she spoke with the birds and sent them to watch over the children until they were grown, to feed them and warn them. And so, to this day, the four children (though there are more now) live in the cottage with the birds, and fight, and hide, and try to grow up, and the Lady lives apart, though now she so longs for her husband that she allows a few to enter her house."

"I tell you all this so that you might someday grow up too. And you may trust that I know what happened, because I saw it all. But don't worry about this story, because it is almost all lies."

Loch made this

god this post is so long.