So I've been thinking recently about Abbathor. What exactly makes him an evil diety? Yes he is greedy, and yes he does steal from the other races, but even he won't still from the dwarves at most he comes off as an objectivist (follower of Ann Rand) which many wouldn't define as evil. He certinly wouldn't go into the baby killing and such of Lolth or Bane. Have I missed something or are the dwarven Gods just not very evil? Thanks!

Evil Acts from BoVD Examining the action of the malevolent not only helps define what evil is, but it also gives in insight into the schemes of a villain. What follows is more than a list that defines evil as opposed to good. Read over the following sections to get ideas for villainous plots, schemes, motivations and personalities

Greed is so simple a motivation that it hardly seems worth mentioning. Yet it drives villians perhaps more than any other factor. Greed is tied into most of the types of evil behavior mentioned here. Ambition taken too far--particularly advancement at the expense of others-- can manifest itself as greed. Lust for wealth, power, or prestige can lead to jealousy, theft, murder, betrayal, and a host of other evils

Theft Any child can tell you that stealing is wrong. Villians however, often see theft as the best way to acquire what they want. Evil people pay only for things they cannot take. An evil character needs a reason not to steal. Fear of being caught is the most common deterrent, but sometimes a villian elects not to steal an item because he or she doesn't want to incur the wrath of its owner. For example, a drow cleric might pay a rogue for a magic item. The cleric isn't averse to stealing from the rogue, but she pays for the item so that the rogue will continue working for her.

In short, I don't have opinions, I just quote things

His goal is to turn every dwarf on Faerun into a greedy, lustful, avaricious snake. He wants to ruin dwarves.

Also, cutting open living elves and stuffing them full of gems and gold while praying to Abbathor doesn't exactly invite the light of goodness!

Metro_Pack Also, cutting open living elves and stuffing them full of gems and gold while praying to Abbathor doesn't exactly invite the light of goodness!

Personally...

I think the elves should be grateful for such generosity. Hello?? We're talking about raving worshippers stuffing you with gems!! Get a cleric over and ressurect you! And you'll be one of the few begemmed elves! :lol: You'll be rich for life!!! Come on dudes! What the hell happened to freedom of speech! If he prefers to pray before a dying elf stuffed with gems and gold. (And the elf gets rich too) What's the big deal?? :roll:

His goal is to turn every dwarf on Faerun into a greedy, lustful, avaricious snake. He wants to ruin dwarves.

Also, cutting open living elves and stuffing them full of gems and gold while praying to Abbathor doesn't exactly invite the light of goodness!

Shit. Why haven't I made an Abbathor nutter yet?

Next project.

Well you wouldnt want to make a abbathor nutter probably because he's not nuts, he's very intelligent, schemeing and bigoted.

Also he's extremely crafty, he's been able to convince moradin and the rest of the pantheon that although he likes his trifles he's 100% on their side. In short he's extremely deceptive, likely an abbathor worshipper wouldnt advertise the fact at all. They would be extremely bigoted against non-dwarves though and killing these creatures for their "stuff" would be high on their list of activities. Stealing from fallen comrades would also be a high activity, of course as long as you can do it without getting caught which would result in you LOSING what you've gained.

If you want to make a dwarven nutter you COULD go for diirinka and make a derro (though theres no support on EFU for them yet, you'd need to apply to the d.ms for it) , or a follower of deep duerra who would probably be nutty as well as being a complete control freak.

I agree with tristan also, complete selfishness at any expense is one of the cores of evil.

If you want to make an interesting character making one that starts off being simply uncaring and selfish and SLOWLY over some time erodes away their few morals by doing more and more things for themselves to the point where abbathor might come to them in dream :)

I'm sort of suprised abbathor hasnt become a duergar deity, he'd be perfect. I guess it's only by his deceit thats kept him from being chucked out ;)

Metro_Pack His goal is to turn every dwarf on Faerun into a greedy, lustful, avaricious snake. He wants to ruin dwarves.

Also, cutting open living elves and stuffing them full of gems and gold while praying to Abbathor doesn't exactly invite the light of goodness!

Get the first part, but is the second something he would actually do..that seems to get a little to close to baby killing for me..

He's evil.

That means he's dedicated to evil in some form, pure vile and unadulterated evil. This means, he kills babies if he has to.

Abbathor hopes to corrupt the entire dwarven race.

Abbathor's purse, which metropakt described is a yearly ritual.

The thing is, no dwarf really knows this and only a few of the dwarven dieties suspect this.

Somehow it warms my soul to hear that a dwarven deity uses stuffed elves as his purses.

Well you wouldnt want to make a abbathor nutter probably because he's not nuts, he's very intelligent, schemeing and bigoted.

Any bloke who cuts open a living elf and stuffs him full of gems is a nutter. Whether he's intelligent, dexterous, wise, charismatic etc. doesn't impinge on him being friggen nuts, at least in my reckoning.

Ok *wonders how he could go about doing the ritual* (are there npc elves...?) Hmm will have to read up more on him. Thanks for all the input keep it coming. Any books offical novelizations where he or his clerics make an appearance..

So attempting to take over the ledership of the dwarf clan over a longgg period of time would be in character and the using it to corrupt the dwarves in underdark.

Don't forget, Dwarven Paladins represent the Entire Pantheon, and all their ways and wiles.

The Dwarves basically have Two Merchant Gods. Vergadain, and Abbathor. Abbathor is essentially the Dwarven god of Money, wealth, and the aquisistion of piles of it at any cost.

Abbathor didn't start evil he ended up that way, he fell into the descent of evil through jealousy after Moradin gave patronage of the Gold Dwarves to Dumathoin (Or shield dwarves, another example of the Forgetten Realms continuity issues). Abbathor only ever really wanted one thing, he didn't get it, and because of that he turned into a creature of malice and trickery. I suppose Yoda was right about all that fear leads to anger anger leads to hate and hate leads to the dark side stuff.

He represents the Misers, Greed, and other things of the bad side of dwarven nature. All Dwarves are greedy, just carry a dead one back from a quest to find out that truth. Abbathor remains loyal to the Moradinsamman because he does not want to end up like Laduergar and Deep Duera, but make no mistake, he is everything that is evil about greed, money, and misers. He's a pretty good example of evil working within the system.

Line up all you elves :)

~Rex

Interesting point though..may be why the paladin leader of the stout hears looked at me oddly but let me in...(assuming he just detected evil I dobut they can see who you whorship correct?)

Yep thats right also paladins are dissuaded from instantly labelling somebody as "EVIL!!!!! burn him at the stake" sort of behaviour with that ability.

If you want to think of it as imperfect sense; that works better in the game mechanic, paladins may get flashes from neutral people thinking dark throughts or even a fellow good aligned dwarf when he thinks about how he's gonna chop up that giant into little pieces.

There are ways to hide from this divination since that's all it is. Though most are not implemented.

The most a paladin SHOULD do is watch carefully that individual that he felt uncomfortable about. Thats why i'm against the guilt by association policy of paladins teaming up with evil characters. Until they actually DO evil in the party or the paladin knows for sure of their evil deeds they're just somebody to be wary of. A paladin can still not be comfortable with them, or think them 'untrustworthy" or whatever other excuse enough to not group with them but it shouldnt be a hard and fast rule WHATEVER it says in the 'official' texts before you start quoting stuff at me again, you serial quoters you :D .

chaosprism The most a paladin SHOULD do is watch carefully that individual that he felt uncomfortable about. Thats why i'm against the guilt by association policy of paladins teaming up with evil characters. Until they actually DO evil in the party or the paladin knows for sure of their evil deeds they're just somebody to be wary of. A paladin can still not be comfortable with them, or think them 'untrustworthy" or whatever other excuse enough to not group with them but it shouldnt be a hard and fast rule WHATEVER it says in the 'official' texts before you start quoting stuff at me again, you serial quoters you :D .

The thing is (and bear in mind, this is off-topic) it IS a hard-and-fast kind of rule, because Evil in FR isn't malleable, it isn't the fruit of actions or thoughts. Certain things (orcs, kobolds, chromatic dragons) as well as certain people (Ivandur Reynolt, for example) are INHERENTLY evil. Things can change, yes, but that change is what requires action.

- Kiaring

Also evil isn't a philosophy in faerun. It is actually a force in the world, it exists. Demons from the lower planes are the epitome of evil, they are evil incarnate and they receive their powers from evil. Just think Faerun=Star wars except replace spaceships with horses and ewoks with halflings

I dont know I see plenty of halflings that are evil, were any of the ewok's evil?

Also who ever admitted that a halfling was cute ? :D

Tristan Also evil isn't a philosophy in faerun. It is actually a force in the world, it exists. Demons from the lower planes are the epitome of evil, they are evil incarnate and they receive their powers from evil. Just think Faerun=Star wars except replace spaceships with horses and ewoks with halflings

Are you saying Demons from the lower planes don't exist in the Real World? *looks shocked*

The easiest way is by the negative proving way: I have never seen a real devil or demon summoned publicly in the real world. In Faerun, it's not that common to see imp familiars, or the occassional demon villian.

Ah yes but any scientist will tell you that proving a negative is difficult if not impossible ;). Anyway getting off topic now. I realise your point and will roleplay accordingly.