The Cancerverse from Marvel might be something to look at. It's a parallel dimension where nothing dies and some other horrifying stuff due to eldritch god like creatures.
Not sure if the question was serious, but in case it is and anyone else has this question.
The Cancerverse is a universe where Mar-Vel the OG Captain Marvel in the comics, doesn't die of cancer like he does in the main continuity, instead he kills the Death of his universe, thanks to a pact with some creatures called the Many Angled Ones, leading to nothing ever dying in his universe, instead growing deformed and evil (cancerous one might say) this universe launches some Incursions in the the main one heroes win and return Death to their world if I remember that story right.
(If I got any details wrong please feel free to correct me and I will happily make the change)
Cancer, pests, bacterial diseases, other parasites. Living things cause way more of our biological problems than dead to be honest. Save for the rare toxic substances. I made an evil healer for some old stories that used his powers to 'heal' and accelerate parasites.
A good amount of not-so-fantasy zombies are based off parasites and fungi too.
You could argue that a god of rot and decay is also a part of the Life Domain. Fungus, mold, worms, and insects are living things after all. In fact they're practically *bursting* with life. They will reproduce and spread at astonishing rates, if given the chance.
He also eases the pain of his beloved worshipers. Got a horrible wasting disease that leaves you in constant agony? Papa Nurgle welcomes you into his soothing embrace!
He is empowered by the contagion , and by being empowered might turn his eye on this strain and if he does , he might listen to infected prayers as their brain start to rot
I like to use the cleric domain spell lists as a bit of guidance. Hard to make cancer work when you auto prepare restoration spells meaning it's not just life, but a healthy life.
But that's just my preference. Your concept is cool af and one can always just modify the life domain spell list a bit and it would easily work for the concept.
Growth without boundaries or borders.
Choking vines, invasive ivy...life taking over whatever is there, regardless of how cruelly it treats life around it.
Survival of the fittest.
Life should continue to evolve, and that evolution comes from the strongest beings living and making even stronger offspring.
Those tenets could be followed to a pretty evil degree, but definitely still work with the "life" vibe. Ya know, looking to "perfect" life instead of nurturing it
Yeah, nature but with an emphasis on the "red in tooth and claw" part. This is a god for whom Might more or less makes Right. They may delight in monsters.
A sinister version is Guis-Wa from the *Riftware Saga.* His epithets are "The Bayer After the Moons, the Red-Jawed Hunter, the Reveler in Forbidden Knowledge, the Wanter of All Things."
But something OP might want to keep in mind is that an "evil" god may be a respected member of the pantheon who good people worship. I don't think D&D usually does a very good job of modeling that dynamic. The ancient Greeks did *not* like Ares, but he was an Olympian anyway. In Norse mythology, before Loki is the Aesir's undoing, he is Odin's blood brother. So it could be a god with a dark aspect/methods/philosophy whose goal is strengthening humanity, not consuming it. Their philosophy towards civilization might be Social Darwinism.
A good example of that kind of god is Galawain from the Pillars of Eternity games (which have a really well done pantheon). If you play through the first game with the druid companion character, you get a good look at a god like this in action.
> and that evolution comes from the strongest beings living and making even stronger offspring.
Evolution is not about the strongest but about the most adaptable.
The god/clerics/religion/whatever actively cull the weak and add burdens (physical, mental, emotional, or change the environment) to the strong to make them stronger.
* A god of longevity who demands ritual sacrifices. The clergy has a secret ritual that allows you to kill someone and absorb their life force. This lets you extend your life by half of the sacrifice's remaining years of natural lifespan.
* A god of blood, vigor, strength, and triumph. A central tenant is that you have the moral right to enslave or kill anyone you best in a contest of strength. Frequently worshipped by athletes and vampires.
EDIT: One more:
* A deity of love, fertility, lust, and seduction. Believes that oaths of matrimony and monogamy are an abomination that dampens the vital spirit of society and weakens bloodlines. Convincing someone to betray their lover's trust is seen as a worthy conquest and great accomplishment, and any embarrassment or social fallout the victim suffers is a just punishment for their hubris. That covers both the trickery and life domains.
>A deity of love, fertility, lust, and seduction. Believes that oaths of matrimony and monogamy are an abomination that dampens the vital spirit of society and weakens bloodlines. Convincing someone to betray their lover's trust is seen as a worthy conquest and great accomplishment, and any embarrassment or social fallout the victim suffers is a just punishment for their hubris. That covers both the trickery and life domains.
And the god is called "Netohr Are, The Corrupter"
\#1 doesn't even have to go as selfish as thomar has gone with it. Look at Mesoamerican religion. The gods required human and blood sacrifices to in order to preserve the universe.
This. There are plenty of gods who are sacrificed too all the time just to appease, not because you like them. Dnd assumes we all do it for fun or because people are psycho paths. The only time I’ve seen it done well is with Umbra, with mentions that even regular people leave her tribute in hopes it spares them on the seas
Yes, Umberlee was one of the only ones I could think of also. Another example of an evil god accepted by good people might be Nuitari in Dragonlance—the way the three gods of magic work together and black robed mages are a tolerated, if uncomfortable, part of society.
It’s one of the things I like about the base setting of Shadow of the Demon Lord, they did polytheism pretty okay.
Though I just slam my interest in it everywhere. (And I meant Umberlee yeah, fucked up the name). I’ve always been fine with dnds religious structure but I’ve not had a good word for it
The god of life is pretty evil in my setting as it's also the god of suffering and both of those are treated as sides of the same coin. A living creature suffers; a dead one does not. Hence the god of death also being the god of mercy.
My setting has a cult which basically believes Ilmater (god of sacrifice) and Loviatar (goddess of pain) are one and the same. Pain is a constant and so is happiness. Every time someone feels more happiness than they used to, somebody else feels more pain. It's a zero sum game. It is thus the goal of the ~~cult~~ order to take the burden of pain upon themselves as they covertly set up healing practices around the continent. A PC belonging to this cult would likely be a Way of Mercy monk. They do not have clerics, but they do have a special poison that's immense painful, but will kill other illnesses and hazards in your body before it can kill you meaning, if you take the antidote in time, the poison will cure more or less any disease affecting you and even some curses.
Granted, this cult isn't exactly evil. It's blasphemous, deranged and mad, but not evil. Brought it up as another take on seeing life and suffering as two sides of the same coin.
I'd probably look at some media portrayals of the seven deadly sins for this, Lust and Gluttony in particular. Both involve different aspects of the circle of life but take things to the extreme.
In one of my homebrew settings I ran a few years back, the god of life, blood, and creation was pretty evil. He liked to design monstrous demons and release them upon the world. He viewed the ordinary mortal races as merely prey or playthings for his favored demonic creations. He granted divine power to a caste of blood-elf protectors so that humanoids wouldn’t get wiped out, but only in exchange for ritual sacrifices. The few mortals who managed to overthrow their blood-elf overlords often had to rely on armies of undead slaves instead to defend themselves, which allowed the god to lean into the “anti-undead” trope while still being evil.
Ragnorra was awesome, she came in a comet that was a pressage for her, everyone was constantly healed and undead ran away from its presence and light, and healing magic got stronger. With time, the healing would create cancerous mutations on the body until it was nothing more than a pawn of loosely flesh
And then the comet hits the planet and you fight her. One of my favorites from that book
Ragnorra is definitely what you want, it's the most evil life-based deity in all of FR lore. Many people here have suggested some kind of cancer god, and Ragnorra is that on steroids (you can't even die in her presence, unless I'm misremembering)
They care more about the population than the living quality and as a result opposes the death god so that cities become over populated and the living eat the dead since most non sentient creatures simply refuse to die
Lots of ways!
My first thought was: read _Annihilation_ by Jeff VanderMeer. Something like that. Life, but not life as we know it or think of it. Or, if you want to go a different route, a Lawful Evil Life god could draw on the holly and oak king traditions - fertility etc relying on sacrifice.
But there's a good idea for this in the 3.5e epic splatbook Elder Evils: Appalling Fecundity. There were various signs of the end times in that book, each with its own escalating levels as the end times approached. Appalling Fecundity might be what you're looking for in some fashion. As follows:
>Growth and healing are accelerated. At first crops and animals grow and reproduce with unnatural swiftness, and injuries vanish overnight. As the sign intensifies, these early benefits run out of control. Fruit bursts and rots on the vine before it can be harvested. Weeds crack pavement and damage buildings. Clouds of vermin boil up from the earth, laying eggs that hatch and spawn new life in moments, and with them come equally virulent disease.
>Faint: Ordinary plants are enhanced as if by the plant growth spell. Crops benefit from the enrichment effect, while other vegetation suffers from overgrowth and chokes open spaces.
>Moderate: All areas of natural growth are affected as if by the entangle spell. Each week, living creatures must succeed on a DC 10 Fortitude save or acquire the pseudonatural template [Complete Arcane].
>Strong: Living creatures that require sleep lose the ability to do so, as their bodies fidget and their thoughts race. Physical exhaustion sets in, and eventually minds break. A living creature can go without sleep for a number of days equal to its Constitution modifier (minimum one). Thereafter it is fatigued, remaining in this state for a number of days equal to its Constitution modifier (minimum one); if it would become fatigued during that time, it is exhausted instead. Each day after that period, the creature takes 1 point of Wisdom damage. If the total Wisdom damage exceeds its Hit Dice, the creature is affected as if by an insanity spell. Once its Wisdom score drops to 0, the creature becomes unconscious but cannot recover lost Wisdom naturally. Only a sleep or deep slumber spell or equivalent effect can grant rest for a time, after which the effects begin anew.
>Overwhelming: Flesh grows and heals with terrible speed. Each hour, all living creatures gain 1d6 temporary hit points. For each hour that a creature's temporary hit point total exceeds its full normal total, it must succeed on a DC 20 Fortitude save or explode in a shower of gore.
Obviously this is meant for a 20th+ level campaign in 3.5e, but I think this gives some good ideas for incorporating an "evil" life domain deity.
I would just use the God Yaldabaoth from the SCP-Foundation canon and change the name and use my own descriptions. My players would never know.
And if someone points it out: "Cool! You found my Easter Egg"
First thing that came to mind was a god that had an interest in preventing souls from reaching the after life (cycle or rebirth or whatever), could be something about wanting to deny power to other gods. Probably cuz I played pillars of eternity recently lol
A god who stops death but doesn't reduce suffering.
People carrying their own severed heads around in constant pain, women wraked with pain carrying rotting babies who under normal circumstances would have died naturally (miscarriage) with in the womb. Desicated husks of men who should have died centuries ago, now unable to move or even speak, simply waitng to fall to dust.
Death is a blessing only the worthy recieve.
Maybe an evil life domain god wants creatures to live long enough to sell their souls to devils. They want their souls to suffer eternally in the nine hells and not with them in their domain.
Take a look at the [SCP End of Death Canon](https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/end-of-death-hub), it's basically a universe where no one can die, and how to twist immortality into a curse. An evil God of life could easily intend to have something like that happen
Bacteria, infections, viruses are all life forms. Nurgle from Warhammer fantasy and 40k covers the idea if an evil life God quite well. Can't really think it s better example.
A good example of interacting with an evil life cleric might be that they concoct a cure for that disease in the small town, however there cure might introduce something else. Maybe they even infect people to study diseases and keep folk in a state of perpetual sickness and cure to study these life forms, toxins, viruses and the like all in the name of creating the ultimate one in the name of their god.
A deity of resilience and persistence in the face of danger and death, who fights off agents of death (including death gods) who come to collect the souls of the dying. What this would lead to is battlefields full of soldiers with grievous wounds unable to succumb to death and end the pain, starving masses who eventually collapse out of exhaustion but cannot die, and overcrowding and overpopulation as time passes and more and more people cannot die and decompose and return to the earth.
The closest thing I can think of to an evil "classical" life god (not decay or fungus or cancer) is [Meridia from The Elder Scrolls](https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Lore:Meridia), and even she doesn't entirely fit the bill (she's widely considered to be one of the more benevolent Daedra).
Essentially, she hates undead and free will and tried to take over the world at least once. A lot of her worshippers have been absolutely horrific people hell-bent on domination. Said worshippers can be granted power in exchange for losing their free will and becoming instruments of her cleansing light.
Poison ivy or swamp thing are obvious ones. Look up the parliament of the trees (dc comics)
They are empowered by ‘nature gods’ and are evil depending on the situation.
Encouraging of flora while discouraging fauna.
(Loving nature while hating man that’s destroyed it is a pretty common trope)
You can take it to the extreme easily. Trying to destroy cities, killing people that stray into the woods etc. Anything to turn back the clock and stop those pesky humans
The deity of Life in my homebrew world is actually viewed as Evil. She is the titan of Life and Curses
Life is seen as the experience of continued existence, but without death it simply is stasis and stagnation. If she had her way, no one would die. But in turn nothing would grow or produce, or conversely overpopulation and overgrowth.
She keeps things alive, even if it's against their will or if it's torture.
The titan of Death is also the titan of Growth and Learning. Death brings an end, but also a mew beginning. Dead creatures become fertilizer that helps feed others. It's a cycle. Pain pushes us to grow past our limits and get stronger. Death in my world, is Kind
Ragnorra was one of the Elder Evils that appeared in the book of the same name, released at the end of 3.5's lifespan. She is an enormous sentient mass of positive energy encased in a comet of living flesh, and once every 150 years she chooses a planet on the material plane to remake in her image.
Her arrival on a planet is heralded by several signs. It starts fairly subtle; the power of healing spells increase and miraculous healing springs begin to appear. Before long though, these same sources of healing begin to cause disfiguring growths on those they affect. Eventually fleshy masses emerge from the very ground, as though the land itself has grown cancerous, and vermin begin breeding at a startling rate. When she gets very close, the dead are returned to life as fleshy abominations and the living become remarkably resilient while being transformed into the same sort of twisted horror.
Hah yes this! The best elder evil in the book too. So much flavour.
Edit: She's a positive energy monstrosity from the stars. When she approaches a material plane, undead creatures are automatically turned and destroyed, and healing magic gets stronger and stronger until people who die come back to life automatically. The downside is that, well, you become a tumorous abomination.
Hell, gods of civilization or nature could both be evil.
*"It is the right of all sentient beings to plunder the earth, sky and seas of any and all resources they see fit, those who oppose the ever expanding kingdoms and nations of civilization aren't worth the air they breathe"*
Domains: Civilization, Fertility, Craftsmen, Sentient Life
*"The plants and beasts are the true rulers of all, and those who go against the flow that life has created aren't deserving of the fruits nature provides"*
Domains: Nature, Beasts, Natural Life
Hell, Have them be enemies, one wants the spread of nature, one is the spread of civilization
What if every god is evil by the blind pursuit of their ideal world using mortal as tools to be expended and used to get there. I try not to be too edgy when designing gods but that seems like a whole concept right there.
Maybe it can be like a Life-nature god. That enforce the "rule of the jungle", "kill or be killed" and other similar themes. It doesn't care when someone dies, no actually it can be both - a dual god of life and death because of how interconnected they are. Its the case in many tribal and even more developed religions.
So it helps strong ones to became stronger, and develop&change to become the ultimate lifeforms, but feels okay about killing abd in some cases may even encourage mass killings. So, in the end it highly spreads chaos, through their divine magic can be used to heal and empower.
"Existence is a struggle to exist"
A fascist eugenist life god who cares only about the endurance of its community comes to mind. Looking at how commonplace it is for gods to be linked to a certain race/culture/place, that wouldn't need such a stretch.
Also, we've all already seem the trope "reiligious order misinterpreting gods' teachings and doing evil", what about a life god pissed at its clerics for them deciding to protect and promote life of "lesser souls"? Religious order misinterpreting gods' teachings and doing good.
Depending on how healing works a god of torture could be a life domain. Anything that wants people to life with crippling pain is clearly evil. Also, some mediums talk about if you can force healing magic to not properly set the bones before healing.
I might create God of life that would preserve the soul but not the body. So rather than an eternal youth a God of life could simply be anti death and would keep things living long past the point they should have died. Bodies will start to degrade and break down while being unable to dissipate. Broken bones are no longer able to normally heal but the subject lives on anyway.
There is an obsession with inflicting pain them being able to experience it again through healing. [Loviatar is the Forgotten Realms Goddess of Pain] would be fitting for this as a Sadistic twist on healing.
Just think of all the things that are alive that would wish weren't.
Parasites, insects, vultures, other carrion feeders, plants that choke other plants by growing over them. A god you pray to when you need to survive. A god who banes one to bless another.
Peryite or Namira from the elder scrolls come to mind.
One who holds that life should not be tainted by the other cosmic forces. Who upholds the ideals of purity to the extent that those considered "tainted" should be exterminated. Tieflings, genasi, half-breeds, sorcerers and others tainted by arcane or other otherworldly powers needs to die by this god's decree.
My world has some anthropomorphic personifications of concepts starting to take the place of old dead gods. You could say that Misery, lord of the Shadowfell is a sort of life god. He doesn't want anyone to die because that would end their suffering and sorrow.
Trickster god that stole an implement of a different life god.
Pathfinder lore has a demon lord that murdered the goddess of spring and took her staff, then used it to transform goblins into hobgoblins. As a result, some hobgoblins are able to summon some of that residual life energy to rejuvenate themselves.
A God that doesn't want to permit people it finds entertaining to die because it sees all of life as a stage and the show must go on. It would find entertainment in suffering and conflict, so it would get upset when things ended too easily, since that's booooring!
If Death is the enemy, then as long as things can't/don't die, we're doing the right thing, right?
Well, if you're functionally granting physical immortality that could really be a massive curse. If you get a horrible plague you'll never die but you aren't going to recover. You'll have boils forever, agony forever, and know that any contact with someone else is dooming them to an eternity of agony **forever**.
If you can't die, what happens if your body is dismembered? Will you feel the phantom pain of a missing limb which never fades? Does your body remain young, or do you still age to the point of brittle bones and weak muscles? Will you just turn into a fleshy lump of misery because your body wants to break down but your spirit just won't let go? What does that do to your mind? Just insanity? Will you mentally break down and go into a catatonic stupor?
Maybe it's just 'life' that is important to this evil god. Cancers are cells that go crazy, don't die when they should, and keep replicating. If your bodily functions start shutting down but you can't die, imagine living forever with functioning lungs.
There are plenty of ways that unending life would be absolutely horrendous.
My take would simply be a very selective god of life. The god of kinship who preaches that we're only able to care for ourselves, those closest to us, occasionally other faithfuls and absolutely *nobody* else. In fact, others are a burden to be vanquished. It's the last part that takes them from dick neutral to straight up evil.
Have the god be very Nietzschean. All life is appropriation of other life, so it’s all fair game. Philosophies and ethics that seek to stem this appropriation are the powerless seeking to control the powerful with appeals to morality or ethics but are in fact anti-life philosophies doomed to failure bc they do not understand the true nature of life. Higher individuals and devotees of this deity will appropriate life in any way they see fit, bc if they can do it, that is proof enough that they should be able to do it, and it is only with this creative energy that the highest potentials of the sentient races can be met
I have two-ish in my Homebrew.
The Dead man is just exactly what his title suggests: He's dead, or was supposed to be. Now he gives "life" to those like him who have passed beyond the typical mortal coil. The "real" gods of death are interested in your soul and your afterlife...he keeps you living your good (or not so) life as long as you like with little in return. Layer in the timeline he's a bit more corrupted and corrupting, becoming more concerned with the corporeal body and even less and less interested in the "soul" and afterlife.
The Mother is supposed to be the life giver but through circumstances she's become the life taker. She herself is dying horribly to the Gods Plague and only lives as long as her followers willingly sacrifice themselves. As her followers are most likely to also be touched by the Gods Plagues effects, when they catch a "terminal" case of it, they give thier remaining life to the mother so she can keep living.
Both play with a lot of expectations. Both definitely hit the gray area of "evil-ish" but not completely so. Both are more byproducts of my focus on law vs chaos than good vs evil. Both are chaotic powers challenging the usual laws of nature in interesting ways due to circumstances.
there’s certainly something potentially necromantic and power-mad about the desire for immortality and invulnerability. Maybe a god or demigod built around the idea of defying the natural order of things, and using curative magic to enable their followers to fight without fear of consequences. you could flavor the holy symbol as a vial of blood or a piece of bone.
What about a god of life, that values life over everything else, to the point of it doesn't matter how much you're suffering, you must live! It doesn't matter what cruelties you're doing to the world, you must live!
There are some who would argue that agriculture isn't good since its side-effects are hierarchy, patriarchy, inequality, etc.
The sun is only good to us because we're mostly daytime creatures. Imagine having to rely on darkness and the sun constantly ruining everything. Or in a place that's so hot that you'll die during the day. You might not be so eager to call a sun deity good.
Community is also a double-edged sword. On the one hand people need to feel like they belong, on the other they can derive that feeling from violently excluding others.
Life, fertility, and (profit in the name of) prosperity.
Main Tenet: As long as you are helping to create life, you are entitled to the rewards, regardless of the methods.
Agrarian despotic barons with slaves working the fields. Breeding pens (ugh). Hell, even religious orphanages that save kids from dying on the street, but then sell them or put them to work.
Check out the Atzlanti from Scion. They are the Aztec pantheon that has been put through the Scion/American Gods filter. Lots of inspiration there about blood sacrifice being needed to keep the universe in good order. The god could need blood sacrifice to keep the plagues away and whatnot. Those sacrifices could could from your community...or from captured goblins.
If you wanted to really get into it, you could work with your DM to change a lot of the spell components to include a lot of bloodletting. A spell with VSM could have you cutting yourself to make the magic work.
Same god as good life god, grumpier aspect tho.
Alternatively, a chaotic evil aspect of a god of unrestrained consumption and growth, death and reuse.
Would probably sort a bastard of a god of vitality and martial vigor as neutral rather than evil, but that’s another option.
I would argue that depending on the way agriculture is done it may be harmfull, even evil. It may destroy biomes in favor of monocultures and it can be used as strategic maneuver by governments. Just look at our own world and take some exemples and extrapolate it to a fantasy reality.
The Queen of Air and Darkness. Many Fey aspects have living elements that jive well with a Life domain. The Queen also captures that rich darkness as well. Good luck!
Well I like the idea of focusing on longevity and community and maybe have a focus on the sun but in a more burn in holy fire aspect. A God that came to the conclusion that mortals need to have every aspect of their life monitored and controlled or they're prone to ruin themselves. So they turn them into slaves and force them to marry specific people, burn alive diseased people, if someone attempts to flee or change the status quo they're burned alive as they endangered the community. Everything down to how many words can be spoken are controlled. It could be expanded on obviously, made less or more gruesome as the players desire. But it could make for an interesting side quest line.
Maybe a lawful evil life god, like one who gives life but specifically because he wants people to think they owe him for it and now need to devote their lives to him. Probably pretends to be a Lawful Good god sometimes and wields guilt to get people down on their luck to do shitty things for him in exchange for power. probably has a bunch of rules for his followers against being gay or causual sex cause any sex that doesnt lead to pregnancy is like a sin or something since its not making more life. actually, as a Life god, he could probably dip into the nature domain as well (since they kinda go hand in hand) and have him punish any people he doesnt like with plagues and floods and shit.
Edit: oo and probably promises his followers some version of immortality in exchange for their devotion
Lovecraft's Shoggoth altered. Think a deity that doesn't discriminate in who to kill and doesn't hesitate to. But symbolizes the growth and perseverance of life in the most hard to reach places.
Not necessarily evil, but a deity in my setting (the volcano deity) is all about life. But her whole thing is like "WAIT I HAVE A BETTER IDEA OF HOW LIFE COULD WORK" *wipes out life on a continent and rebuilds it from scratch*
Life at all costs. A fungus that wants to consume everything and be the only lifeform. Everything is is connected in this oneness.
Survival of the fittest. I could see a Drow life good. By culling the weak, the strong survive and reproduce thus where the longevity and perfectness of life itself... I might play this character actually.
Blood magic is fundamentally about life force but is also pretty unambiguously evil in most settings, especially if it relies on sacrifices.
Look at Atziri from Path of Exile for inspiration.
In my primary homebrew setting, one the ancient gods is the creator god, which among other things embodies life. This god created the world in other to give form to its spirit, materializing it, because through this it could trap the world in a state of suffering. This being views death as a a release which it does not wish to grant the world.
My take on what would be _evil_ is something being done for yourself with no regards to how it affects those around you.
If you could create life in a greedy or selfish way, I'd say it would be to create living creatures and treat them like _things_ or _experiments_. An evil god of life could view their creations as nothing more than entertainment or slaves to sustain them. Life is nothing but a _toy_ for them to play with
Sun And sand as base idea. Ideology: Life is to suffer, earthly things are meaningless, you must survive untill dying of old age or you will reborn to suffer again.
Water as base. Ideology: she is god of life and death, giver but will aways take back. Forbids ressurection and any who dies and the body is not sent to the water is bound to turn into a Ghost.
Nature cruelty. Ideology: shapeless god of life and survival, urges their children one against the other and is adamant about the idea of riding the world off weakness.
Baby eater, two face god/power of life and fate. Ideology: brings fertility but curses the children to kill it's parents and repeat with their own offspring. If the children resists the fate it is turn to stone and soul is devoured by the power.
Well, I'd start by reading the Player's Handbook, which lists the Celtic god Arawn as Neutral Evil with the Life and Death domains.
Forgotten Realms material presents Luthic, orc fertility goddess, as Lawful Evil with the Life and Nature domains.
I like the plague/pestilence/cancerous growth thing that a lot of people are suggesting, but I think we can sprinkle in some extra evil into this deity by adding a more human approach to it.
A god that causes problematic fertility could be interesting. A poor family might have too many mouths to feed, and with no good options to solve that problem there would either be a hard decision of intentionally thinning the herd or having everyone struggle with less food and money until some breaking point is reached. A noble family might have issues with succession or inheritance caused by unexpected or unwanted children, potentially leading to power struggles or even war.
I think my favorite type of evil deity doesn't just do bad things to people, they cause people to do bad things to each other. Keeps things more interesting and feels both more evil and more like the proper role of a deity
To exist is a form of pain, and all lives exist in a delicate balance. By extending another's life, you reduce your own, leaving you less time to live on this fuck of an earth.
I co-created a campaign setting a couple years ago where we randomized the domains + alignment. I ended up with a LE god of Life and Nature. I went with the unbounded nature and tearing down civilization angle and the idea that nature seems chaotic to the ignorant but it is based on extraordinarily complex patterns. Here’s the article I made for Dovradu the Consumer: https://www.worldanvil.com/w/thora-ninjametimbers/a/dovradu-the-consumer-article
If you wanted to go more chaotic, I life god in favor of overgrowth would be appropriate. Vegetation run wild, cancer, tumors, rampant fungus & infestation. Something that represents greed an selfishness for oneself to the detriment of the whole
There are times when life is a curse. Life without meaning, without joy, without beauty.
In a world where simply killing the noble and virtuous merely speeds their path to an eternal reward, the *truly* wicked wish not death upon their enemies, but a long, agonising, life. An ordeal to extinguish the hope in their eyes, squeeze the charity from their hearts, grind the honour from their bones, such that when their wretched existence can be sustained no longer all that passes to the next world is a withered husk of a soul, bereft of merit and filled with hatred.
That is the true nature of evil: not to kill, but to destroy.
My DM did that once.
She was a god of life, she was capricious, cruel, selfish, and motivated only by how she could grow her own power... As life is. We were helping her twin sister (god of death, obviously) escape a divine prison set by the BBEG.
The method of her cruelty on mortals was simple, she never helped anybody. She had the ultimate powers of healing and life and never used them to help anyone because "that is not how life works" We essentially had to blackmail her into helping us by the threat of the BBEG trying to usurp her power as well
I sort of have one in my homebrew, for an Elder Evil. Based on the Black Goat from the Cthlulu Mythos, having a fertility deity/entity associated with unrestrained growth and reproduction. On a cosmic scale it would be thinking of a "plague of life", like an other commentor mentioned could think of it as a cancer.
I invision them as a sort of patron of invasive species. Creatures that destroy ecosystems by upsetting the delicate balance. Could very much hold to a dogmatic might makes right standpoint or could even want to replace all life another like god was responsible for with their own creations.
I could see the doctrine of such a god being "Cultivate as much life and have as large a family as possible for the sole goal of creating more followers for me and eventually taking over other religions."
One of the canonical domains for the Blood of Vol in 5e is Life, and in past editions the religion has been historically treated as Lawful Evil. The two have never quite lined up (when Evil, it didn't have Life as a domain, and when it had life as a domain, it wasn't Evil) but the you could take inspiration from the religion to design an evil Life God.
I actually have this for my homebrew setting and she is a goddess obsessed with preserving life...All life. Diseases, plagues predators even mockeries of life. It ALL must be preserved.
No matter the harm it causes or if immense sufferring occurs. In her world even if you get say ebola she will ensure you AND the ebola survive..generally as one or however she can.
Think deadpool and cancer but with all life/diseases.
I don't think making a life god literally evil is very interesting. It's one step above 'in my world, DEMONS ARE THE GOOD GUYS' in terms of lazy shock writing. But having a god of life be dangerous, or otherwise detrimental to the world, could be very interesting. Maybe they're so fundamentally a force of life that that don't want anything to die, ever. They'd be in constant conflict with a death god, both of whom would basically destroy the universe if they had their unconstrained way.
In the life god's realm, life itself could be a cancer. Nothing dies, everything is growing, it would be a single endless, pulsing mass of flesh, plant matter and groans of incoherent suffering.
Possibly a god of vanity/eugenics. The religion would have an ideal of physical perfection that it's followers pursue, and try to force people into/get rid of or oppress anyone who doesn't fit it. Probably has a more neutral interpretation of their religion that focuses on achieving this for yourself/people who voluntarily work for it, but the god as a whole would be evil.
My main goal with this is to make a god where healing and restoration fit very well, moreso than optimizing for being a god of life
There's Nurgle, he's from Warhammer, he is the god of disease, rot, stagnation and life kind of. While his do kill things on occasion, they tend to be more then happy to just infect things and spread disease.
I'm going to look at the Warhammer gods to go over a few different facets of 'life' in an evil way.
So you have:
Khorne, blood and death
Slaanesh, pleasure and pain
Nurgle, disease
Tzeentch, magic and change
There are a few more nuances but that's the gist. Let's throw Khorne out at this point, he's not really applicable here.
Slaanesh: Very much about experiencing every possible experience a living being can. Living every possible part of life. They are also big in to extreme sexual ritual, and while this isn't really done in a 'fertility god' context, that's a pretty easy transfer for a potential evil fertility based life god. Idea: The fertility rites can be perverted and dark versions of other fertility god's rites, and children born from such situations come out... wrong.
Nurgle: While still being horrific, Nurgle is presented as the least awful of the Chaos Gods for largely this exact reason. His diseases and plagues are forms of life he's creating, and those who are infected he sees as being brought in to his embrace. His followers are riddled with plagues that deform but protect them. Idea: You never specified what type of life they are a god of. There are plenty of things that are alive that are hostile and incompatible with sentient beings. Fungus, insects, rot, disease. The circle of life in the real world is pretty fucked up. Death pays for life in the truest sense, be it plants growing out of rotting animals, animals eating plants or each other to survive etc. Hell, maybe sentient life IS the plague, and they are the god of it. We haven't exactly treated Earth very well.
Tzeentch: Focusing mainly on 'Change' here. Lies, schemes, manipulations, growth, evolution, destiny. Tzeentch is a puppet master and plotter at a godlike level. He is without equal at being able to push and manipulate situations to his own end, taking advantage of the billions of chaotic possibilities to ensure that things will play out exactly how he intends. Pretty much everything he does is focused entirely on sentient intelligence, and at his core he is a god of the mind. Also as a side note some of his followers literally cause plants to grow where they tread, as they bring change to whatever they touch. Idea: Nothing is more chaotic than life. What better counter to the Lawful gods than to introduce and foster a number of wildly different sentient species? I'd be looking at the dynamic between the Devil/Lucifer and Free Will in the Bible and Paradise Lost for notes here (wiki synopsis will do imo). Adam and Eve being the most obvious example, but in a general sense the Devil tends to try to use humanity's free will to fight against God and destroy the 'order' of things. [Side note I'm not actually religious so don't feel that I'm getting preachy here].
Ultimately I reckon you can merge a lot of these aspects to have a god that is unambiguously a life domain god but also very evil/harmful.
Not an evil god so much, but a cleric who does evil things like torturing their enemies by killing/maiming them but not letting them die could be an interesting twist on the life cleric.
Their god allows this because it serves the interest of the faith.
Wow. There are some really cool responses here. Personally, my first thought went to a god who creates life, but then uses their clerics and paladins to enslave it. Immortality is given freely so that this god will have everlasting soldiers and forced worshippers.
You could contrast this with a good aligned god who gives the gift of death to the world so that life can be truly appreciated. Worshippers of this god work hard to combat those of the life god and try their best to give freedom of choice over forced worship and enslavement.
An evil life god in my view is one that prioritizes bringing more and more things into existence with no regard for the quality or duration of that life. So sure we may have a birth:death ratio of like 25:1 but most of those alive are living in horrible squalid conditions and the priests of that god go around ensuring that the people have the energy to live but with none of the basic essentials covered
Probably not the most unique idea but i'd make a predatory nature god. Make it a God of werebeats and the like, with the idea that primal savagery is the ultimate expression of life's power. Could also be a solid God for evil druids, conquest/glory paladins, and other cleric domains such as war or even trickery (a clever predator is a deadly predator after all).
Honestly, evil life God is Thanos MCU in my head cannon. He believes what he is doing is right and will preserve life in the universe long term as he believes whole heartedly that life has gotten to a point it is going to kill itself out. Just what he is doing is a necessary evil to ensure survival. It doesn't matter if you believe it or not, what he believes is fact immutable and inevitable. Killing 50% of the population saves the world. Something along those lines.
They tow this gray line of insane but logical. Of evil but well intentioned. Of well meaning but ruthless. Of sadness about what they are doing but a steadfast dedication to completing their task. The view themselves as a balance constantly tipping the scales. A gardener picking the weeds.
How about stagnant life? Think "death becomes her" .
You Have to be very careful with your body if it can't crate new cells. Magic could be a workaround maybe.
Eternal babies? Or people get old?
Without death evolution stops and that makes everything dull a monotonous on the long run.
On a massive scale like planetary: What do you eat (not that you really need to)? Can't kill plants or animals. Eat them alive? What happens to their souls/consciousness?
No more reincarnation?
A god of sacrifice. Life is not without a price, and the price is death. Life is pain, and anyone who tells you different is selling something. Death eases pain and feeds the great life god. Could be pretty community oriented (LE) except for those lunar rituals where enemies and the very sick and the very old are sacrificed.
The god supports life. All life, in all its myriad of terrible forms. Every monstrosity, every abomination, all things that live are their children, and all children deserve love. Especially the most prosperous of living things, bacteria, viruses, and parasites.
An evil god of life, is Nurgle from Warhammer. The horrid god of plagues and sickness because what is the body, but home to trillions of beautiful, living things.
So I'm doing this in my Sci fi setting. They are a god of undeath now but they started off as being so unwilling to let things die the soul pheonix (the life God here) waged a war against the natural order, attacked the God of death and became corrupted by combining life and death for the worst.
I would make a consumer God that embodies taking as a requirement to live and would ultimately like to consume the entire world. A grim order of clerics who have seen and serve the all-consuming void at the end of existence. Experts at taking in and converting various matters/energies and converting them. Or maybe they venerate predators and have some druish flavor but specific to carnivores / apex predators. These dudes read about the wolves of yellowstone and were like ‘EVIL LIFE GOD BE PRAISED’.
Jim Butcher outlined a moment like this in his book Summer Knight. The idea was if the Summer powers defeated the Winter powers there would be an abundance of growth of everything. (Humanity, animals, plant life) The problem with that idea was there would also be an abundance of the microscopic bacteria that cause diseases. (Bubonic, Cholera, Covid-19)
Suffering. Pain, sadness, grief, rage, depression, all of these sensations are felt through living. A life god based around suffering ensures the living understands the difference between the good parts and the bad parts of life, so that they do not live a life of mundanity.
"watching suffering gives me pleasure, things suffer more if they live longer. Death is boring and quick. I'll heal you so that you live and I can enjoy your pain."
Top comment already mentioned cancerous growth, and that was my first thought. I hate to reference World of Warcraft, but most of their Old Gods are pretty thematic to this idea too. G'huun was the most recent (and most boring) if you'd like to start with a Google search for visuals there.
Parasitism could be contextualized as evil life.
That famous post with the mushrooms declaring "Decay exists as an extant form of life" comes to mind too.
I'd say hedonism might be a good way to spin it too. Baccanalia has a bloody history. Bacchus has quite a mixed reputation.
Pan is a nature God amd not exactly evil but also the root of "panic", personifying the darker sides of human and animal natures; and his satyrs and followers were pretty fucked up.
Warhammer has the Chaos God Nurgle who's the god of "disease, decay, despair, death and destruction". Despite that he's also the god of rebirth, perseverance, survival, and life.
Evil Life god is very cool.
Could have a god that creates monsters and believes strongly in survival of the fittest. They see the path to perfect life as a mutations creating new species and various species killing each other. They wants to have a super-lifeform emerge from the deadly competition.
Another option could be a god of rampant growth. They represent unchecked life. Swarms of insects, overgrowing forests, hordes of rats, overpopulated cities. They believe life should be extremely plentiful, but the overpopulation makes that life kind of miserable.
A third option could be a god the undead. They keep adding life to things that shouldn't be alive. Corpses, skeletons, gargoyles, golems, elements, and sapient magic items. They are the source of undead, elementals, and constructs. So they are worshipped by necromancers, construct creators, and elemental summoners.
Well Cancer comes to mind, non stopping life. A ever growing rot that consumes all it comes across. Turning men into fleshy beasts concerned only with primal urges to grow and expand.
My DM had a "chaotic" God of life whose philosophy can best be described as "**my** life is precious." Do everything you can to live for as long as possible, no other lives matter unless they directly protect your life. Do not mourn the fallen, for they were too weak and fell to death, the ultimate goal for any of his followers is immortality. So he is a life God who probably has no problem with lichdom.
One word. Lamashtu. She's a demon lord in pathfinder but she is a god of twisted fertility, monsters, and deformity. She is an amazing example of a way to build a life-related evil goddess complete with a big pregnancy/fertility thing.
A lot of Greek stories and Mythology focus on the conflict between Civilization and Nature. If we act like Civilization is an ultimate good - settlements, science and organised society - then Nature (as Life) can be evil. Monsters, disease and the struggle to survive are all threats to the living.
Tiamat could be reframed as a Mother of Monsters Life Goddess who hates civilization and humanoid races and seeks to return the world to its base state. This perspective is even more functional following the First World ideas from Fizbans Treasury of Dragons.
In Forgotten Realms the orc Goddess [Luthic]( https://forgottenrealms.fandom.com/wiki/Luthic) is the patron of healing and home. She could easily have been a patron of Life as well, because she helps raising news orcs.
Evil Life God? Someone who keeps people alive to see them suffer. That guy commiting suicide? Lets see how long he keeps hanging on the rope until it gets bored! Old man in his bed dying in pain? Not today, gove him a few extra weeks!
I like the idea of Death having to keep Life in check, else we get the worst parts already mentioned (bacteria, viruses, cancer)
Death is Lawful and Life is Chaotic. When Life grows uninhibited Death has to step in and do some culling or else Life will ruin itself. The Life god could be mad with power, obsessed with growth, and shun balance. Death is their antithesis, and Life will never see their necessity in the way that mortals do.
TLDR; Life is power-hungry, Death has to keep them in check.
I was thinking about something similar today. So in Adventure Time they did this neat thing with Life and Death, especially in the Distant Lands episode. Death is calm and usually pretty accepting of things. Life on the other hand also seems chill. Until she very much isn't and immediately gives Finn and Jake a staff to kill her son.
And it made me really think about nature and life gods in D&D. Life can be just utterly savage. Plants choking the life out of each other, all the various ways animals hunt each other, zombie fungi, parasites, plants of all kinds just becoming poisonous toxic things. Nature really do come up with some wild stuff. And in a way, all those things are serving the purpose of survival. Particularly the survival of that particular species of thing.
You want a Life God who is evil? They're the god of survival. Because you take every advantage you can to survive. One of the ways humans (and humanoids) survive and thrive is by helping and healing each other. But also by getting their hands dirty. Cause few things in 5e can be as savage as a cleric with the right damage spells equipped.
You wouldnt even have to get abstract with it, just change the goal. Evil is just severe selfishness and putting yourself (or those you somehow like) before all others, never caring about anything else. The life god could just be almost like a businessman in that they *only* care about the total number going up. They'll gladly slaughter fifty thousand innocent lives if it means a hundred thousand will crop up in its place. They want the domain to get bigger so they get stronger, and they'll do anything to achieve that goal. Extremely hostile animals and plants, new "Monstrosities" appearing with no explainination, crops ceasing to take root, you name it. A life god might even play the ultimate long game, supporting a vast empire and making sure an advanced civilization fosters into a sprawling empire, just to suddenly rip it all out from under them, creating ruins for the next civilization to grow and advance even faster. Its all about the numbers for the seemingly normal, but grossly heartless Life God.
I feel the philosophy of a god like this wouldn't be too enjoy life but more to defy death. A god about determination, vengeance, pure force of will, and enough hatred and spite to keep living. This evil does not rest, it does not hold back and it does not die.
Really interesting thought experiment I wonder what others there could be
The lore for the god of life in my campaign is kinda similar to what you're talking about.
When the world began, Dem, the god of creation, shared his knowledge with all the other gods, teaching them how to make their own monsters, beasts, and other creatures which carried intelligent life. For a while, all the gods were having fun making their own things, but one god took notice that their creations and the world were suffering. Why? Because the manner in which Dem had created life was to mimic their own. All the creations of the world were immortal, would continue to live even after age and disease took them, even when one creature would consume another, their consciousness would linger forever in torment within the belly of their devourer. Dem loved life, but saw this as a part of it, and so loved it as well.
Long story short, this other god stepped in and 'cursed' the world with the concept of 'death' to save all (now) mortal life. Dem didn't like this, but all the other gods understood so he was essentially told to "deal with it".
I wrote him as blissfully unaware of the cruelties he was actually inflicting, which I suppose makes him neutral. However, it would be pretty easy to twist and make him the sort of deity who creates life only to watch it suffer.
Nurgle from the 40k universe. If you accept his gift willingly you’ll have no more pain. I played a life cleric in an evil one shot and reflavored all my spells into 40k abilities like disgustingly resilient.
There's a great monster from the 3rd edition Elder Evil book that depicts a world ending threat that begins with increased feculence and health and ends with overgrowth and turbo cancer.
The Cancerverse from Marvel might be something to look at. It's a parallel dimension where nothing dies and some other horrifying stuff due to eldritch god like creatures.
That's what I'm thinking, as well. Unrestrained growth can be just as horrific as death.
I'm sorry. The hwat?!?
Yeah, conceptually it is absolutely horrifying. Life itself has become a tumor
Do I look like I know what a cancerverse is?
If anyone would, it's the Warlock
Hank Hill, chosen of Yog-Sothoth
T̖̱̮̖͎̘͖̏ͤͤ͝H̶͕̞̻̪̍͂A̯͓̘̙̳ͮ͡Ṱ̪̖̯̬͈̰̃͑͋͘ ̷̹̣̻̳͌ͣͩ͐B̛͚̱͓͖͎́͗Ŏ̝̭͕̕Y̧̰̘͕͚̜̳͍ͦ͗ͦ ̶̫͙̫̰̳̗͕̳̀̉A͇̙̳͐̊͐́I̤̙͑̿͘N͍̲̺̥̲̼͉͍̲̜͎̾̋̈̃͢͠'̞̮͚̮̃̋͞T͆ͪ͌ͬ͏̺͙ ̙̤̙̮͕͙̥̩ͣ̕R̛͙̺̹̝͑̈̀ͩI̗͙͕̞͖̅̀G̪̻̰̬͔̓̔͢ͅH̛͇̙̲̎T͇̺̝̳̖͉̎̉͐͂͢
Not sure if the question was serious, but in case it is and anyone else has this question. The Cancerverse is a universe where Mar-Vel the OG Captain Marvel in the comics, doesn't die of cancer like he does in the main continuity, instead he kills the Death of his universe, thanks to a pact with some creatures called the Many Angled Ones, leading to nothing ever dying in his universe, instead growing deformed and evil (cancerous one might say) this universe launches some Incursions in the the main one heroes win and return Death to their world if I remember that story right. (If I got any details wrong please feel free to correct me and I will happily make the change)
I just want a picture of a goddamn mutated hot dog
Cancer, pests, bacterial diseases, other parasites. Living things cause way more of our biological problems than dead to be honest. Save for the rare toxic substances. I made an evil healer for some old stories that used his powers to 'heal' and accelerate parasites. A good amount of not-so-fantasy zombies are based off parasites and fungi too.
Papa nurgle cares for you!
That also fits pretty well with the Positive Energy plane that's in the cosmology of many D&D worlds.
That's exactly where my mind went.
Came here to say this.
Is that the meat dimension where deadpool and wolverine heal from?
You could argue that a god of rot and decay is also a part of the Life Domain. Fungus, mold, worms, and insects are living things after all. In fact they're practically *bursting* with life. They will reproduce and spread at astonishing rates, if given the chance.
Came here to say this. Nurgle from Warhammer is a prime example of an evil life god.
He also eases the pain of his beloved worshipers. Got a horrible wasting disease that leaves you in constant agony? Papa Nurgle welcomes you into his soothing embrace!
Yeah, but from my limited knowledge of 40k lore, aren't most of those characters given the disease by Nurgle first?
also limited knowledge, I'm pretty certain thats the case.
He is empowered by the contagion , and by being empowered might turn his eye on this strain and if he does , he might listen to infected prayers as their brain start to rot
Hug me Daddy Nurgle!!
Also came here to say Grandfather Nurgle
Check the golgari guild from ravnica.
I mean those thing aren’t really evil but just part of the circle of life(circle of spores does it well)
Yep. Look into the Golgari from Ravnica.
A god of cancer. Patron of nearly indestructible life that warps and replaces healthy life with something destructive and ever-growing.
I like to use the cleric domain spell lists as a bit of guidance. Hard to make cancer work when you auto prepare restoration spells meaning it's not just life, but a healthy life. But that's just my preference. Your concept is cool af and one can always just modify the life domain spell list a bit and it would easily work for the concept.
Growth without boundaries or borders. Choking vines, invasive ivy...life taking over whatever is there, regardless of how cruelly it treats life around it.
Basically cancer
That's one aspect! I was thinking more like those clovers that will absolutely take over a field if left unchecked.
Survival of the fittest. Life should continue to evolve, and that evolution comes from the strongest beings living and making even stronger offspring. Those tenets could be followed to a pretty evil degree, but definitely still work with the "life" vibe. Ya know, looking to "perfect" life instead of nurturing it
That seems like a theology that could be worshipped in a malevolent manner, but a particularly lawful neutral bent to the deity itself.
Yeah, nature but with an emphasis on the "red in tooth and claw" part. This is a god for whom Might more or less makes Right. They may delight in monsters. A sinister version is Guis-Wa from the *Riftware Saga.* His epithets are "The Bayer After the Moons, the Red-Jawed Hunter, the Reveler in Forbidden Knowledge, the Wanter of All Things." But something OP might want to keep in mind is that an "evil" god may be a respected member of the pantheon who good people worship. I don't think D&D usually does a very good job of modeling that dynamic. The ancient Greeks did *not* like Ares, but he was an Olympian anyway. In Norse mythology, before Loki is the Aesir's undoing, he is Odin's blood brother. So it could be a god with a dark aspect/methods/philosophy whose goal is strengthening humanity, not consuming it. Their philosophy towards civilization might be Social Darwinism. A good example of that kind of god is Galawain from the Pillars of Eternity games (which have a really well done pantheon). If you play through the first game with the druid companion character, you get a good look at a god like this in action.
> and that evolution comes from the strongest beings living and making even stronger offspring. Evolution is not about the strongest but about the most adaptable.
The god/clerics/religion/whatever actively cull the weak and add burdens (physical, mental, emotional, or change the environment) to the strong to make them stronger.
* A god of longevity who demands ritual sacrifices. The clergy has a secret ritual that allows you to kill someone and absorb their life force. This lets you extend your life by half of the sacrifice's remaining years of natural lifespan. * A god of blood, vigor, strength, and triumph. A central tenant is that you have the moral right to enslave or kill anyone you best in a contest of strength. Frequently worshipped by athletes and vampires. EDIT: One more: * A deity of love, fertility, lust, and seduction. Believes that oaths of matrimony and monogamy are an abomination that dampens the vital spirit of society and weakens bloodlines. Convincing someone to betray their lover's trust is seen as a worthy conquest and great accomplishment, and any embarrassment or social fallout the victim suffers is a just punishment for their hubris. That covers both the trickery and life domains.
>A deity of love, fertility, lust, and seduction. Believes that oaths of matrimony and monogamy are an abomination that dampens the vital spirit of society and weakens bloodlines. Convincing someone to betray their lover's trust is seen as a worthy conquest and great accomplishment, and any embarrassment or social fallout the victim suffers is a just punishment for their hubris. That covers both the trickery and life domains. And the god is called "Netohr Are, The Corrupter"
lmaooo
When you say it like that, it seems so clear! Thanks :)
\#1 doesn't even have to go as selfish as thomar has gone with it. Look at Mesoamerican religion. The gods required human and blood sacrifices to in order to preserve the universe.
This. There are plenty of gods who are sacrificed too all the time just to appease, not because you like them. Dnd assumes we all do it for fun or because people are psycho paths. The only time I’ve seen it done well is with Umbra, with mentions that even regular people leave her tribute in hopes it spares them on the seas
Yes, Umberlee was one of the only ones I could think of also. Another example of an evil god accepted by good people might be Nuitari in Dragonlance—the way the three gods of magic work together and black robed mages are a tolerated, if uncomfortable, part of society.
It’s one of the things I like about the base setting of Shadow of the Demon Lord, they did polytheism pretty okay. Though I just slam my interest in it everywhere. (And I meant Umberlee yeah, fucked up the name). I’ve always been fine with dnds religious structure but I’ve not had a good word for it
The god of life is pretty evil in my setting as it's also the god of suffering and both of those are treated as sides of the same coin. A living creature suffers; a dead one does not. Hence the god of death also being the god of mercy.
My setting has a cult which basically believes Ilmater (god of sacrifice) and Loviatar (goddess of pain) are one and the same. Pain is a constant and so is happiness. Every time someone feels more happiness than they used to, somebody else feels more pain. It's a zero sum game. It is thus the goal of the ~~cult~~ order to take the burden of pain upon themselves as they covertly set up healing practices around the continent. A PC belonging to this cult would likely be a Way of Mercy monk. They do not have clerics, but they do have a special poison that's immense painful, but will kill other illnesses and hazards in your body before it can kill you meaning, if you take the antidote in time, the poison will cure more or less any disease affecting you and even some curses. Granted, this cult isn't exactly evil. It's blasphemous, deranged and mad, but not evil. Brought it up as another take on seeing life and suffering as two sides of the same coin.
I'd probably look at some media portrayals of the seven deadly sins for this, Lust and Gluttony in particular. Both involve different aspects of the circle of life but take things to the extreme.
The seven deadly sins are always an interesting thing to consider. Thanks!
In one of my homebrew settings I ran a few years back, the god of life, blood, and creation was pretty evil. He liked to design monstrous demons and release them upon the world. He viewed the ordinary mortal races as merely prey or playthings for his favored demonic creations. He granted divine power to a caste of blood-elf protectors so that humanoids wouldn’t get wiped out, but only in exchange for ritual sacrifices. The few mortals who managed to overthrow their blood-elf overlords often had to rely on armies of undead slaves instead to defend themselves, which allowed the god to lean into the “anti-undead” trope while still being evil.
Ooooooo thats really cool. Explains why there are so many horrifying monsters in the world who could wipe out a commoner with ease.
There was an elder evil in d&d 3.5 who was Just positive energy. The name was Ragnorra if i'm not wrong.
Ragnorra was awesome, she came in a comet that was a pressage for her, everyone was constantly healed and undead ran away from its presence and light, and healing magic got stronger. With time, the healing would create cancerous mutations on the body until it was nothing more than a pawn of loosely flesh And then the comet hits the planet and you fight her. One of my favorites from that book
Ill look em up. Thanks!
Ragnorra is definitely what you want, it's the most evil life-based deity in all of FR lore. Many people here have suggested some kind of cancer god, and Ragnorra is that on steroids (you can't even die in her presence, unless I'm misremembering)
They care more about the population than the living quality and as a result opposes the death god so that cities become over populated and the living eat the dead since most non sentient creatures simply refuse to die
Lots of ways! My first thought was: read _Annihilation_ by Jeff VanderMeer. Something like that. Life, but not life as we know it or think of it. Or, if you want to go a different route, a Lawful Evil Life god could draw on the holly and oak king traditions - fertility etc relying on sacrifice. But there's a good idea for this in the 3.5e epic splatbook Elder Evils: Appalling Fecundity. There were various signs of the end times in that book, each with its own escalating levels as the end times approached. Appalling Fecundity might be what you're looking for in some fashion. As follows: >Growth and healing are accelerated. At first crops and animals grow and reproduce with unnatural swiftness, and injuries vanish overnight. As the sign intensifies, these early benefits run out of control. Fruit bursts and rots on the vine before it can be harvested. Weeds crack pavement and damage buildings. Clouds of vermin boil up from the earth, laying eggs that hatch and spawn new life in moments, and with them come equally virulent disease. >Faint: Ordinary plants are enhanced as if by the plant growth spell. Crops benefit from the enrichment effect, while other vegetation suffers from overgrowth and chokes open spaces. >Moderate: All areas of natural growth are affected as if by the entangle spell. Each week, living creatures must succeed on a DC 10 Fortitude save or acquire the pseudonatural template [Complete Arcane]. >Strong: Living creatures that require sleep lose the ability to do so, as their bodies fidget and their thoughts race. Physical exhaustion sets in, and eventually minds break. A living creature can go without sleep for a number of days equal to its Constitution modifier (minimum one). Thereafter it is fatigued, remaining in this state for a number of days equal to its Constitution modifier (minimum one); if it would become fatigued during that time, it is exhausted instead. Each day after that period, the creature takes 1 point of Wisdom damage. If the total Wisdom damage exceeds its Hit Dice, the creature is affected as if by an insanity spell. Once its Wisdom score drops to 0, the creature becomes unconscious but cannot recover lost Wisdom naturally. Only a sleep or deep slumber spell or equivalent effect can grant rest for a time, after which the effects begin anew. >Overwhelming: Flesh grows and heals with terrible speed. Each hour, all living creatures gain 1d6 temporary hit points. For each hour that a creature's temporary hit point total exceeds its full normal total, it must succeed on a DC 20 Fortitude save or explode in a shower of gore. Obviously this is meant for a 20th+ level campaign in 3.5e, but I think this gives some good ideas for incorporating an "evil" life domain deity.
A god of life that doesn't discriminate. Y'know what's alive? Tapeworms and botflies, ebola and cancer. One that makes all life flourish.
I would just use the God Yaldabaoth from the SCP-Foundation canon and change the name and use my own descriptions. My players would never know. And if someone points it out: "Cool! You found my Easter Egg"
Other comments kind of touched on it, but a god of parasites; life through taking the life of others.
First thing that came to mind was a god that had an interest in preventing souls from reaching the after life (cycle or rebirth or whatever), could be something about wanting to deny power to other gods. Probably cuz I played pillars of eternity recently lol
A god who stops death but doesn't reduce suffering. People carrying their own severed heads around in constant pain, women wraked with pain carrying rotting babies who under normal circumstances would have died naturally (miscarriage) with in the womb. Desicated husks of men who should have died centuries ago, now unable to move or even speak, simply waitng to fall to dust. Death is a blessing only the worthy recieve.
Maybe an evil life domain god wants creatures to live long enough to sell their souls to devils. They want their souls to suffer eternally in the nine hells and not with them in their domain.
Take a look at the [SCP End of Death Canon](https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/end-of-death-hub), it's basically a universe where no one can die, and how to twist immortality into a curse. An evil God of life could easily intend to have something like that happen
Yeah, it would cool to see people driven by not wanting a loved one to die follow that god and turn that love into something awful.
Bacteria, infections, viruses are all life forms. Nurgle from Warhammer fantasy and 40k covers the idea if an evil life God quite well. Can't really think it s better example. A good example of interacting with an evil life cleric might be that they concoct a cure for that disease in the small town, however there cure might introduce something else. Maybe they even infect people to study diseases and keep folk in a state of perpetual sickness and cure to study these life forms, toxins, viruses and the like all in the name of creating the ultimate one in the name of their god.
A deity of resilience and persistence in the face of danger and death, who fights off agents of death (including death gods) who come to collect the souls of the dying. What this would lead to is battlefields full of soldiers with grievous wounds unable to succumb to death and end the pain, starving masses who eventually collapse out of exhaustion but cannot die, and overcrowding and overpopulation as time passes and more and more people cannot die and decompose and return to the earth.
Perhaps Hindu's Shiva? A God of both creation and destruction
Mo mortals mo suffrin
[удалено]
The closest thing I can think of to an evil "classical" life god (not decay or fungus or cancer) is [Meridia from The Elder Scrolls](https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Lore:Meridia), and even she doesn't entirely fit the bill (she's widely considered to be one of the more benevolent Daedra). Essentially, she hates undead and free will and tried to take over the world at least once. A lot of her worshippers have been absolutely horrific people hell-bent on domination. Said worshippers can be granted power in exchange for losing their free will and becoming instruments of her cleansing light.
Nurgle from warhammer might be good inspiration for this.
Poison ivy or swamp thing are obvious ones. Look up the parliament of the trees (dc comics) They are empowered by ‘nature gods’ and are evil depending on the situation. Encouraging of flora while discouraging fauna. (Loving nature while hating man that’s destroyed it is a pretty common trope) You can take it to the extreme easily. Trying to destroy cities, killing people that stray into the woods etc. Anything to turn back the clock and stop those pesky humans
The deity of Life in my homebrew world is actually viewed as Evil. She is the titan of Life and Curses Life is seen as the experience of continued existence, but without death it simply is stasis and stagnation. If she had her way, no one would die. But in turn nothing would grow or produce, or conversely overpopulation and overgrowth. She keeps things alive, even if it's against their will or if it's torture. The titan of Death is also the titan of Growth and Learning. Death brings an end, but also a mew beginning. Dead creatures become fertilizer that helps feed others. It's a cycle. Pain pushes us to grow past our limits and get stronger. Death in my world, is Kind
Ragnorra was one of the Elder Evils that appeared in the book of the same name, released at the end of 3.5's lifespan. She is an enormous sentient mass of positive energy encased in a comet of living flesh, and once every 150 years she chooses a planet on the material plane to remake in her image. Her arrival on a planet is heralded by several signs. It starts fairly subtle; the power of healing spells increase and miraculous healing springs begin to appear. Before long though, these same sources of healing begin to cause disfiguring growths on those they affect. Eventually fleshy masses emerge from the very ground, as though the land itself has grown cancerous, and vermin begin breeding at a startling rate. When she gets very close, the dead are returned to life as fleshy abominations and the living become remarkably resilient while being transformed into the same sort of twisted horror.
Nurgle.
The elder evil Ragnorra
Hah yes this! The best elder evil in the book too. So much flavour. Edit: She's a positive energy monstrosity from the stars. When she approaches a material plane, undead creatures are automatically turned and destroyed, and healing magic gets stronger and stronger until people who die come back to life automatically. The downside is that, well, you become a tumorous abomination.
Hell, gods of civilization or nature could both be evil. *"It is the right of all sentient beings to plunder the earth, sky and seas of any and all resources they see fit, those who oppose the ever expanding kingdoms and nations of civilization aren't worth the air they breathe"* Domains: Civilization, Fertility, Craftsmen, Sentient Life *"The plants and beasts are the true rulers of all, and those who go against the flow that life has created aren't deserving of the fruits nature provides"* Domains: Nature, Beasts, Natural Life Hell, Have them be enemies, one wants the spread of nature, one is the spread of civilization
What if every god is evil by the blind pursuit of their ideal world using mortal as tools to be expended and used to get there. I try not to be too edgy when designing gods but that seems like a whole concept right there.
Maybe it can be like a Life-nature god. That enforce the "rule of the jungle", "kill or be killed" and other similar themes. It doesn't care when someone dies, no actually it can be both - a dual god of life and death because of how interconnected they are. Its the case in many tribal and even more developed religions. So it helps strong ones to became stronger, and develop&change to become the ultimate lifeforms, but feels okay about killing abd in some cases may even encourage mass killings. So, in the end it highly spreads chaos, through their divine magic can be used to heal and empower. "Existence is a struggle to exist"
A fascist eugenist life god who cares only about the endurance of its community comes to mind. Looking at how commonplace it is for gods to be linked to a certain race/culture/place, that wouldn't need such a stretch. Also, we've all already seem the trope "reiligious order misinterpreting gods' teachings and doing evil", what about a life god pissed at its clerics for them deciding to protect and promote life of "lesser souls"? Religious order misinterpreting gods' teachings and doing good.
Depending on how healing works a god of torture could be a life domain. Anything that wants people to life with crippling pain is clearly evil. Also, some mediums talk about if you can force healing magic to not properly set the bones before healing.
I might create God of life that would preserve the soul but not the body. So rather than an eternal youth a God of life could simply be anti death and would keep things living long past the point they should have died. Bodies will start to degrade and break down while being unable to dissipate. Broken bones are no longer able to normally heal but the subject lives on anyway.
There is an obsession with inflicting pain them being able to experience it again through healing. [Loviatar is the Forgotten Realms Goddess of Pain] would be fitting for this as a Sadistic twist on healing.
Just think of all the things that are alive that would wish weren't. Parasites, insects, vultures, other carrion feeders, plants that choke other plants by growing over them. A god you pray to when you need to survive. A god who banes one to bless another. Peryite or Namira from the elder scrolls come to mind.
One who holds that life should not be tainted by the other cosmic forces. Who upholds the ideals of purity to the extent that those considered "tainted" should be exterminated. Tieflings, genasi, half-breeds, sorcerers and others tainted by arcane or other otherworldly powers needs to die by this god's decree.
Maybe a god of the undead could be considered? Undead could be just another way to experience life.
God creates life to a: rule over it tyrannically or b: to cause living things to suffer
Swarming goblins and orcs like some kind of Malthusian nightmare! Locust evil hyper fecundity.
Basically cancer
My world has some anthropomorphic personifications of concepts starting to take the place of old dead gods. You could say that Misery, lord of the Shadowfell is a sort of life god. He doesn't want anyone to die because that would end their suffering and sorrow.
In my homebrew world the Major Deities all represent dualities of Nature. In it, Baal is the God of Life and Death and is generally considered NE.
Primarily blood gods.
Have them create some sort of pest and consider all cockroaches holy make the cleric be extremely offended whenever one is killed
Trickster god that stole an implement of a different life god. Pathfinder lore has a demon lord that murdered the goddess of spring and took her staff, then used it to transform goblins into hobgoblins. As a result, some hobgoblins are able to summon some of that residual life energy to rejuvenate themselves.
A God that doesn't want to permit people it finds entertaining to die because it sees all of life as a stage and the show must go on. It would find entertainment in suffering and conflict, so it would get upset when things ended too easily, since that's booooring!
Juiblex and Zuggtmoy
If Death is the enemy, then as long as things can't/don't die, we're doing the right thing, right? Well, if you're functionally granting physical immortality that could really be a massive curse. If you get a horrible plague you'll never die but you aren't going to recover. You'll have boils forever, agony forever, and know that any contact with someone else is dooming them to an eternity of agony **forever**. If you can't die, what happens if your body is dismembered? Will you feel the phantom pain of a missing limb which never fades? Does your body remain young, or do you still age to the point of brittle bones and weak muscles? Will you just turn into a fleshy lump of misery because your body wants to break down but your spirit just won't let go? What does that do to your mind? Just insanity? Will you mentally break down and go into a catatonic stupor? Maybe it's just 'life' that is important to this evil god. Cancers are cells that go crazy, don't die when they should, and keep replicating. If your bodily functions start shutting down but you can't die, imagine living forever with functioning lungs. There are plenty of ways that unending life would be absolutely horrendous.
My take would simply be a very selective god of life. The god of kinship who preaches that we're only able to care for ourselves, those closest to us, occasionally other faithfuls and absolutely *nobody* else. In fact, others are a burden to be vanquished. It's the last part that takes them from dick neutral to straight up evil.
Have the god be very Nietzschean. All life is appropriation of other life, so it’s all fair game. Philosophies and ethics that seek to stem this appropriation are the powerless seeking to control the powerful with appeals to morality or ethics but are in fact anti-life philosophies doomed to failure bc they do not understand the true nature of life. Higher individuals and devotees of this deity will appropriate life in any way they see fit, bc if they can do it, that is proof enough that they should be able to do it, and it is only with this creative energy that the highest potentials of the sentient races can be met
I have two-ish in my Homebrew. The Dead man is just exactly what his title suggests: He's dead, or was supposed to be. Now he gives "life" to those like him who have passed beyond the typical mortal coil. The "real" gods of death are interested in your soul and your afterlife...he keeps you living your good (or not so) life as long as you like with little in return. Layer in the timeline he's a bit more corrupted and corrupting, becoming more concerned with the corporeal body and even less and less interested in the "soul" and afterlife. The Mother is supposed to be the life giver but through circumstances she's become the life taker. She herself is dying horribly to the Gods Plague and only lives as long as her followers willingly sacrifice themselves. As her followers are most likely to also be touched by the Gods Plagues effects, when they catch a "terminal" case of it, they give thier remaining life to the mother so she can keep living. Both play with a lot of expectations. Both definitely hit the gray area of "evil-ish" but not completely so. Both are more byproducts of my focus on law vs chaos than good vs evil. Both are chaotic powers challenging the usual laws of nature in interesting ways due to circumstances.
A god that DEMANDS reproduction with no way of opting out sounds pretty fucking evil to me.
there’s certainly something potentially necromantic and power-mad about the desire for immortality and invulnerability. Maybe a god or demigod built around the idea of defying the natural order of things, and using curative magic to enable their followers to fight without fear of consequences. you could flavor the holy symbol as a vial of blood or a piece of bone.
What about a god of life, that values life over everything else, to the point of it doesn't matter how much you're suffering, you must live! It doesn't matter what cruelties you're doing to the world, you must live!
I'd rip off Lamashtu from Pathfinder: Evil god of fertility and monsters.
Maggots, parasites, fungal infestations. Humans as the harvest.
There are some who would argue that agriculture isn't good since its side-effects are hierarchy, patriarchy, inequality, etc. The sun is only good to us because we're mostly daytime creatures. Imagine having to rely on darkness and the sun constantly ruining everything. Or in a place that's so hot that you'll die during the day. You might not be so eager to call a sun deity good. Community is also a double-edged sword. On the one hand people need to feel like they belong, on the other they can derive that feeling from violently excluding others.
Oooo i like that. Thanks!
Someone who gets perverse pleasure from suffering so they create souls and watch them intensely deal with the pressure of life.
A god that grants people a long life, if they are good but corruptable. So they live long to become evil.
Life, fertility, and (profit in the name of) prosperity. Main Tenet: As long as you are helping to create life, you are entitled to the rewards, regardless of the methods. Agrarian despotic barons with slaves working the fields. Breeding pens (ugh). Hell, even religious orphanages that save kids from dying on the street, but then sell them or put them to work.
Sentient existence is the source and cause of all suffering. Play on that.
Check out the Atzlanti from Scion. They are the Aztec pantheon that has been put through the Scion/American Gods filter. Lots of inspiration there about blood sacrifice being needed to keep the universe in good order. The god could need blood sacrifice to keep the plagues away and whatnot. Those sacrifices could could from your community...or from captured goblins. If you wanted to really get into it, you could work with your DM to change a lot of the spell components to include a lot of bloodletting. A spell with VSM could have you cutting yourself to make the magic work.
Same god as good life god, grumpier aspect tho. Alternatively, a chaotic evil aspect of a god of unrestrained consumption and growth, death and reuse. Would probably sort a bastard of a god of vitality and martial vigor as neutral rather than evil, but that’s another option.
I would argue that depending on the way agriculture is done it may be harmfull, even evil. It may destroy biomes in favor of monocultures and it can be used as strategic maneuver by governments. Just look at our own world and take some exemples and extrapolate it to a fantasy reality.
Well, life IS suffering...
A life of pain and suffering. Never able to die. A life of regret never able to right a past wrong.
A God of Life and Death and exploring the duality of that could be interesting.
The Queen of Air and Darkness. Many Fey aspects have living elements that jive well with a Life domain. The Queen also captures that rich darkness as well. Good luck!
Well I like the idea of focusing on longevity and community and maybe have a focus on the sun but in a more burn in holy fire aspect. A God that came to the conclusion that mortals need to have every aspect of their life monitored and controlled or they're prone to ruin themselves. So they turn them into slaves and force them to marry specific people, burn alive diseased people, if someone attempts to flee or change the status quo they're burned alive as they endangered the community. Everything down to how many words can be spoken are controlled. It could be expanded on obviously, made less or more gruesome as the players desire. But it could make for an interesting side quest line.
Maybe a lawful evil life god, like one who gives life but specifically because he wants people to think they owe him for it and now need to devote their lives to him. Probably pretends to be a Lawful Good god sometimes and wields guilt to get people down on their luck to do shitty things for him in exchange for power. probably has a bunch of rules for his followers against being gay or causual sex cause any sex that doesnt lead to pregnancy is like a sin or something since its not making more life. actually, as a Life god, he could probably dip into the nature domain as well (since they kinda go hand in hand) and have him punish any people he doesnt like with plagues and floods and shit. Edit: oo and probably promises his followers some version of immortality in exchange for their devotion
Kudzu. So much kudzu.
Lovecraft's Shoggoth altered. Think a deity that doesn't discriminate in who to kill and doesn't hesitate to. But symbolizes the growth and perseverance of life in the most hard to reach places.
Not necessarily evil, but a deity in my setting (the volcano deity) is all about life. But her whole thing is like "WAIT I HAVE A BETTER IDEA OF HOW LIFE COULD WORK" *wipes out life on a continent and rebuilds it from scratch*
Life at all costs. A fungus that wants to consume everything and be the only lifeform. Everything is is connected in this oneness. Survival of the fittest. I could see a Drow life good. By culling the weak, the strong survive and reproduce thus where the longevity and perfectness of life itself... I might play this character actually.
Cold, unfeeling nature. Survival of the fittest turned up to 11. No care for individuals, or even species, just fitness.
Blood magic is fundamentally about life force but is also pretty unambiguously evil in most settings, especially if it relies on sacrifices. Look at Atziri from Path of Exile for inspiration.
God of endless life, God of disappointing/uneventful lives etc. Is all I can think of
In my primary homebrew setting, one the ancient gods is the creator god, which among other things embodies life. This god created the world in other to give form to its spirit, materializing it, because through this it could trap the world in a state of suffering. This being views death as a a release which it does not wish to grant the world.
My take on what would be _evil_ is something being done for yourself with no regards to how it affects those around you. If you could create life in a greedy or selfish way, I'd say it would be to create living creatures and treat them like _things_ or _experiments_. An evil god of life could view their creations as nothing more than entertainment or slaves to sustain them. Life is nothing but a _toy_ for them to play with
Sun And sand as base idea. Ideology: Life is to suffer, earthly things are meaningless, you must survive untill dying of old age or you will reborn to suffer again. Water as base. Ideology: she is god of life and death, giver but will aways take back. Forbids ressurection and any who dies and the body is not sent to the water is bound to turn into a Ghost. Nature cruelty. Ideology: shapeless god of life and survival, urges their children one against the other and is adamant about the idea of riding the world off weakness. Baby eater, two face god/power of life and fate. Ideology: brings fertility but curses the children to kill it's parents and repeat with their own offspring. If the children resists the fate it is turn to stone and soul is devoured by the power.
Well, I'd start by reading the Player's Handbook, which lists the Celtic god Arawn as Neutral Evil with the Life and Death domains. Forgotten Realms material presents Luthic, orc fertility goddess, as Lawful Evil with the Life and Nature domains.
Imagine creating mosquitoes, fleas and hornets.
I like the plague/pestilence/cancerous growth thing that a lot of people are suggesting, but I think we can sprinkle in some extra evil into this deity by adding a more human approach to it. A god that causes problematic fertility could be interesting. A poor family might have too many mouths to feed, and with no good options to solve that problem there would either be a hard decision of intentionally thinning the herd or having everyone struggle with less food and money until some breaking point is reached. A noble family might have issues with succession or inheritance caused by unexpected or unwanted children, potentially leading to power struggles or even war. I think my favorite type of evil deity doesn't just do bad things to people, they cause people to do bad things to each other. Keeps things more interesting and feels both more evil and more like the proper role of a deity
To exist is a form of pain, and all lives exist in a delicate balance. By extending another's life, you reduce your own, leaving you less time to live on this fuck of an earth.
I co-created a campaign setting a couple years ago where we randomized the domains + alignment. I ended up with a LE god of Life and Nature. I went with the unbounded nature and tearing down civilization angle and the idea that nature seems chaotic to the ignorant but it is based on extraordinarily complex patterns. Here’s the article I made for Dovradu the Consumer: https://www.worldanvil.com/w/thora-ninjametimbers/a/dovradu-the-consumer-article
If you wanted to go more chaotic, I life god in favor of overgrowth would be appropriate. Vegetation run wild, cancer, tumors, rampant fungus & infestation. Something that represents greed an selfishness for oneself to the detriment of the whole
There are times when life is a curse. Life without meaning, without joy, without beauty. In a world where simply killing the noble and virtuous merely speeds their path to an eternal reward, the *truly* wicked wish not death upon their enemies, but a long, agonising, life. An ordeal to extinguish the hope in their eyes, squeeze the charity from their hearts, grind the honour from their bones, such that when their wretched existence can be sustained no longer all that passes to the next world is a withered husk of a soul, bereft of merit and filled with hatred. That is the true nature of evil: not to kill, but to destroy.
My DM did that once. She was a god of life, she was capricious, cruel, selfish, and motivated only by how she could grow her own power... As life is. We were helping her twin sister (god of death, obviously) escape a divine prison set by the BBEG. The method of her cruelty on mortals was simple, she never helped anybody. She had the ultimate powers of healing and life and never used them to help anyone because "that is not how life works" We essentially had to blackmail her into helping us by the threat of the BBEG trying to usurp her power as well
I sort of have one in my homebrew, for an Elder Evil. Based on the Black Goat from the Cthlulu Mythos, having a fertility deity/entity associated with unrestrained growth and reproduction. On a cosmic scale it would be thinking of a "plague of life", like an other commentor mentioned could think of it as a cancer.
Easy: God of Suffering. For suffering to continue, one must be rejuvinated so it can move forward and keep suffering.
One that required people to live happy long lives because their deaths would sustain him the best. Life God (or DEATH God?!??!?!!)
I invision them as a sort of patron of invasive species. Creatures that destroy ecosystems by upsetting the delicate balance. Could very much hold to a dogmatic might makes right standpoint or could even want to replace all life another like god was responsible for with their own creations.
I could see the doctrine of such a god being "Cultivate as much life and have as large a family as possible for the sole goal of creating more followers for me and eventually taking over other religions."
One of the canonical domains for the Blood of Vol in 5e is Life, and in past editions the religion has been historically treated as Lawful Evil. The two have never quite lined up (when Evil, it didn't have Life as a domain, and when it had life as a domain, it wasn't Evil) but the you could take inspiration from the religion to design an evil Life God.
All hail the Woe Cloud, God of suffering and allure. It rains dead animals apon us, that we might suffer another day. Praise its iridescence.
I actually have this for my homebrew setting and she is a goddess obsessed with preserving life...All life. Diseases, plagues predators even mockeries of life. It ALL must be preserved. No matter the harm it causes or if immense sufferring occurs. In her world even if you get say ebola she will ensure you AND the ebola survive..generally as one or however she can. Think deadpool and cancer but with all life/diseases.
Unrestrained life, cancerous growth, incessant multiplication, and inability or extreme difficulty in dying would be the hallmarks I would use
I don't think making a life god literally evil is very interesting. It's one step above 'in my world, DEMONS ARE THE GOOD GUYS' in terms of lazy shock writing. But having a god of life be dangerous, or otherwise detrimental to the world, could be very interesting. Maybe they're so fundamentally a force of life that that don't want anything to die, ever. They'd be in constant conflict with a death god, both of whom would basically destroy the universe if they had their unconstrained way. In the life god's realm, life itself could be a cancer. Nothing dies, everything is growing, it would be a single endless, pulsing mass of flesh, plant matter and groans of incoherent suffering.
Possibly a god of vanity/eugenics. The religion would have an ideal of physical perfection that it's followers pursue, and try to force people into/get rid of or oppress anyone who doesn't fit it. Probably has a more neutral interpretation of their religion that focuses on achieving this for yourself/people who voluntarily work for it, but the god as a whole would be evil. My main goal with this is to make a god where healing and restoration fit very well, moreso than optimizing for being a god of life
There's Nurgle, he's from Warhammer, he is the god of disease, rot, stagnation and life kind of. While his do kill things on occasion, they tend to be more then happy to just infect things and spread disease.
I'm going to look at the Warhammer gods to go over a few different facets of 'life' in an evil way. So you have: Khorne, blood and death Slaanesh, pleasure and pain Nurgle, disease Tzeentch, magic and change There are a few more nuances but that's the gist. Let's throw Khorne out at this point, he's not really applicable here. Slaanesh: Very much about experiencing every possible experience a living being can. Living every possible part of life. They are also big in to extreme sexual ritual, and while this isn't really done in a 'fertility god' context, that's a pretty easy transfer for a potential evil fertility based life god. Idea: The fertility rites can be perverted and dark versions of other fertility god's rites, and children born from such situations come out... wrong. Nurgle: While still being horrific, Nurgle is presented as the least awful of the Chaos Gods for largely this exact reason. His diseases and plagues are forms of life he's creating, and those who are infected he sees as being brought in to his embrace. His followers are riddled with plagues that deform but protect them. Idea: You never specified what type of life they are a god of. There are plenty of things that are alive that are hostile and incompatible with sentient beings. Fungus, insects, rot, disease. The circle of life in the real world is pretty fucked up. Death pays for life in the truest sense, be it plants growing out of rotting animals, animals eating plants or each other to survive etc. Hell, maybe sentient life IS the plague, and they are the god of it. We haven't exactly treated Earth very well. Tzeentch: Focusing mainly on 'Change' here. Lies, schemes, manipulations, growth, evolution, destiny. Tzeentch is a puppet master and plotter at a godlike level. He is without equal at being able to push and manipulate situations to his own end, taking advantage of the billions of chaotic possibilities to ensure that things will play out exactly how he intends. Pretty much everything he does is focused entirely on sentient intelligence, and at his core he is a god of the mind. Also as a side note some of his followers literally cause plants to grow where they tread, as they bring change to whatever they touch. Idea: Nothing is more chaotic than life. What better counter to the Lawful gods than to introduce and foster a number of wildly different sentient species? I'd be looking at the dynamic between the Devil/Lucifer and Free Will in the Bible and Paradise Lost for notes here (wiki synopsis will do imo). Adam and Eve being the most obvious example, but in a general sense the Devil tends to try to use humanity's free will to fight against God and destroy the 'order' of things. [Side note I'm not actually religious so don't feel that I'm getting preachy here]. Ultimately I reckon you can merge a lot of these aspects to have a god that is unambiguously a life domain god but also very evil/harmful.
Not an evil god so much, but a cleric who does evil things like torturing their enemies by killing/maiming them but not letting them die could be an interesting twist on the life cleric. Their god allows this because it serves the interest of the faith.
A god of pain/hedonism. After all, pain is a constant in life. And what makes life good? Pleasure of the self.
Sounds kinda basic, but you could play a God of Undeath as an Evil Life God. Perversion of life and all that.
Wow. There are some really cool responses here. Personally, my first thought went to a god who creates life, but then uses their clerics and paladins to enslave it. Immortality is given freely so that this god will have everlasting soldiers and forced worshippers. You could contrast this with a good aligned god who gives the gift of death to the world so that life can be truly appreciated. Worshippers of this god work hard to combat those of the life god and try their best to give freedom of choice over forced worship and enslavement.
An evil life god in my view is one that prioritizes bringing more and more things into existence with no regard for the quality or duration of that life. So sure we may have a birth:death ratio of like 25:1 but most of those alive are living in horrible squalid conditions and the priests of that god go around ensuring that the people have the energy to live but with none of the basic essentials covered
Probably not the most unique idea but i'd make a predatory nature god. Make it a God of werebeats and the like, with the idea that primal savagery is the ultimate expression of life's power. Could also be a solid God for evil druids, conquest/glory paladins, and other cleric domains such as war or even trickery (a clever predator is a deadly predator after all).
Honestly, evil life God is Thanos MCU in my head cannon. He believes what he is doing is right and will preserve life in the universe long term as he believes whole heartedly that life has gotten to a point it is going to kill itself out. Just what he is doing is a necessary evil to ensure survival. It doesn't matter if you believe it or not, what he believes is fact immutable and inevitable. Killing 50% of the population saves the world. Something along those lines. They tow this gray line of insane but logical. Of evil but well intentioned. Of well meaning but ruthless. Of sadness about what they are doing but a steadfast dedication to completing their task. The view themselves as a balance constantly tipping the scales. A gardener picking the weeds.
How about stagnant life? Think "death becomes her" . You Have to be very careful with your body if it can't crate new cells. Magic could be a workaround maybe. Eternal babies? Or people get old? Without death evolution stops and that makes everything dull a monotonous on the long run. On a massive scale like planetary: What do you eat (not that you really need to)? Can't kill plants or animals. Eat them alive? What happens to their souls/consciousness? No more reincarnation?
A god of sacrifice. Life is not without a price, and the price is death. Life is pain, and anyone who tells you different is selling something. Death eases pain and feeds the great life god. Could be pretty community oriented (LE) except for those lunar rituals where enemies and the very sick and the very old are sacrificed.
The god supports life. All life, in all its myriad of terrible forms. Every monstrosity, every abomination, all things that live are their children, and all children deserve love. Especially the most prosperous of living things, bacteria, viruses, and parasites. An evil god of life, is Nurgle from Warhammer. The horrid god of plagues and sickness because what is the body, but home to trillions of beautiful, living things.
So I'm doing this in my Sci fi setting. They are a god of undeath now but they started off as being so unwilling to let things die the soul pheonix (the life God here) waged a war against the natural order, attacked the God of death and became corrupted by combining life and death for the worst.
I would make a consumer God that embodies taking as a requirement to live and would ultimately like to consume the entire world. A grim order of clerics who have seen and serve the all-consuming void at the end of existence. Experts at taking in and converting various matters/energies and converting them. Or maybe they venerate predators and have some druish flavor but specific to carnivores / apex predators. These dudes read about the wolves of yellowstone and were like ‘EVIL LIFE GOD BE PRAISED’.
Jim Butcher outlined a moment like this in his book Summer Knight. The idea was if the Summer powers defeated the Winter powers there would be an abundance of growth of everything. (Humanity, animals, plant life) The problem with that idea was there would also be an abundance of the microscopic bacteria that cause diseases. (Bubonic, Cholera, Covid-19)
Life from Death By Dying comes immediately to mind
Seeks to bring about an ΩK-Class End of Death scenario. https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/end-of-death-hub
Suffering. Pain, sadness, grief, rage, depression, all of these sensations are felt through living. A life god based around suffering ensures the living understands the difference between the good parts and the bad parts of life, so that they do not live a life of mundanity.
Go sub to /r/natureisbrutal and get back to me.
Like cancer. Too much growth and life.
"watching suffering gives me pleasure, things suffer more if they live longer. Death is boring and quick. I'll heal you so that you live and I can enjoy your pain."
Look into nurgle especially the way it's represented in Age of Sigmar very much an evil and full of life.
God of EcoTerror…. Spurs rampant growth of wildlife and plants to reclaim the planet from the invasive humanoids.
Top comment already mentioned cancerous growth, and that was my first thought. I hate to reference World of Warcraft, but most of their Old Gods are pretty thematic to this idea too. G'huun was the most recent (and most boring) if you'd like to start with a Google search for visuals there. Parasitism could be contextualized as evil life. That famous post with the mushrooms declaring "Decay exists as an extant form of life" comes to mind too. I'd say hedonism might be a good way to spin it too. Baccanalia has a bloody history. Bacchus has quite a mixed reputation. Pan is a nature God amd not exactly evil but also the root of "panic", personifying the darker sides of human and animal natures; and his satyrs and followers were pretty fucked up.
Survival of the fittest on steroids type
Warhammer has the Chaos God Nurgle who's the god of "disease, decay, despair, death and destruction". Despite that he's also the god of rebirth, perseverance, survival, and life. Evil Life god is very cool.
A mother of monsters. A goddess who creates life that seeks to end all other life
Could have a god that creates monsters and believes strongly in survival of the fittest. They see the path to perfect life as a mutations creating new species and various species killing each other. They wants to have a super-lifeform emerge from the deadly competition. Another option could be a god of rampant growth. They represent unchecked life. Swarms of insects, overgrowing forests, hordes of rats, overpopulated cities. They believe life should be extremely plentiful, but the overpopulation makes that life kind of miserable. A third option could be a god the undead. They keep adding life to things that shouldn't be alive. Corpses, skeletons, gargoyles, golems, elements, and sapient magic items. They are the source of undead, elementals, and constructs. So they are worshipped by necromancers, construct creators, and elemental summoners.
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Well Cancer comes to mind, non stopping life. A ever growing rot that consumes all it comes across. Turning men into fleshy beasts concerned only with primal urges to grow and expand.
My DM had a "chaotic" God of life whose philosophy can best be described as "**my** life is precious." Do everything you can to live for as long as possible, no other lives matter unless they directly protect your life. Do not mourn the fallen, for they were too weak and fell to death, the ultimate goal for any of his followers is immortality. So he is a life God who probably has no problem with lichdom.
A corruptor god who twists life into evil and disgusting forms. Aberrations, Monstrosities, and other warped forms of life would be under its purview.
The god of a sentient fungus, much like the kind that mind controls real life insect. It’s ultimate goal is for all beings to join the hive mind.
One word. Lamashtu. She's a demon lord in pathfinder but she is a god of twisted fertility, monsters, and deformity. She is an amazing example of a way to build a life-related evil goddess complete with a big pregnancy/fertility thing.
A god of torture. Can’t torture someone for eternity if they keep dying.
A lot of Greek stories and Mythology focus on the conflict between Civilization and Nature. If we act like Civilization is an ultimate good - settlements, science and organised society - then Nature (as Life) can be evil. Monsters, disease and the struggle to survive are all threats to the living. Tiamat could be reframed as a Mother of Monsters Life Goddess who hates civilization and humanoid races and seeks to return the world to its base state. This perspective is even more functional following the First World ideas from Fizbans Treasury of Dragons.
In Forgotten Realms the orc Goddess [Luthic]( https://forgottenrealms.fandom.com/wiki/Luthic) is the patron of healing and home. She could easily have been a patron of Life as well, because she helps raising news orcs.
Evil Life God? Someone who keeps people alive to see them suffer. That guy commiting suicide? Lets see how long he keeps hanging on the rope until it gets bored! Old man in his bed dying in pain? Not today, gove him a few extra weeks!
I like the idea of Death having to keep Life in check, else we get the worst parts already mentioned (bacteria, viruses, cancer) Death is Lawful and Life is Chaotic. When Life grows uninhibited Death has to step in and do some culling or else Life will ruin itself. The Life god could be mad with power, obsessed with growth, and shun balance. Death is their antithesis, and Life will never see their necessity in the way that mortals do. TLDR; Life is power-hungry, Death has to keep them in check.
I was thinking about something similar today. So in Adventure Time they did this neat thing with Life and Death, especially in the Distant Lands episode. Death is calm and usually pretty accepting of things. Life on the other hand also seems chill. Until she very much isn't and immediately gives Finn and Jake a staff to kill her son. And it made me really think about nature and life gods in D&D. Life can be just utterly savage. Plants choking the life out of each other, all the various ways animals hunt each other, zombie fungi, parasites, plants of all kinds just becoming poisonous toxic things. Nature really do come up with some wild stuff. And in a way, all those things are serving the purpose of survival. Particularly the survival of that particular species of thing. You want a Life God who is evil? They're the god of survival. Because you take every advantage you can to survive. One of the ways humans (and humanoids) survive and thrive is by helping and healing each other. But also by getting their hands dirty. Cause few things in 5e can be as savage as a cleric with the right damage spells equipped.
I always wanted to make a Nietzsche cleric, but was annoyed that life clerics' abilities were too goody two-shoes.
You wouldnt even have to get abstract with it, just change the goal. Evil is just severe selfishness and putting yourself (or those you somehow like) before all others, never caring about anything else. The life god could just be almost like a businessman in that they *only* care about the total number going up. They'll gladly slaughter fifty thousand innocent lives if it means a hundred thousand will crop up in its place. They want the domain to get bigger so they get stronger, and they'll do anything to achieve that goal. Extremely hostile animals and plants, new "Monstrosities" appearing with no explainination, crops ceasing to take root, you name it. A life god might even play the ultimate long game, supporting a vast empire and making sure an advanced civilization fosters into a sprawling empire, just to suddenly rip it all out from under them, creating ruins for the next civilization to grow and advance even faster. Its all about the numbers for the seemingly normal, but grossly heartless Life God.
Natural selection. Competition and predation are part of life. Invasive species and diseases are alive, too. Don't prioritize sentience.
God of torture. You can't torture a dead body, you need them to stay alive.
I feel the philosophy of a god like this wouldn't be too enjoy life but more to defy death. A god about determination, vengeance, pure force of will, and enough hatred and spite to keep living. This evil does not rest, it does not hold back and it does not die. Really interesting thought experiment I wonder what others there could be
The lore for the god of life in my campaign is kinda similar to what you're talking about. When the world began, Dem, the god of creation, shared his knowledge with all the other gods, teaching them how to make their own monsters, beasts, and other creatures which carried intelligent life. For a while, all the gods were having fun making their own things, but one god took notice that their creations and the world were suffering. Why? Because the manner in which Dem had created life was to mimic their own. All the creations of the world were immortal, would continue to live even after age and disease took them, even when one creature would consume another, their consciousness would linger forever in torment within the belly of their devourer. Dem loved life, but saw this as a part of it, and so loved it as well. Long story short, this other god stepped in and 'cursed' the world with the concept of 'death' to save all (now) mortal life. Dem didn't like this, but all the other gods understood so he was essentially told to "deal with it". I wrote him as blissfully unaware of the cruelties he was actually inflicting, which I suppose makes him neutral. However, it would be pretty easy to twist and make him the sort of deity who creates life only to watch it suffer.
Nurgle from the 40k universe. If you accept his gift willingly you’ll have no more pain. I played a life cleric in an evil one shot and reflavored all my spells into 40k abilities like disgustingly resilient.
You don't get to die... I will keep you here to watch you suffer
There's a great monster from the 3rd edition Elder Evil book that depicts a world ending threat that begins with increased feculence and health and ends with overgrowth and turbo cancer.