Sigh....Nothing like getting insults thrown at you because you are making a joke. But I have come to expect this from you Mac.

Well, perhaps my views of Yin and Yang stem from the Cofucianism iterpretations of Taoist philosphy, or the Buddhist views of the same, where both added some of the thoughts of good and evil to the Taoist Yin and Yang.

Or perhaps some of my disdain of the Harnic Religion is because about every canon article our there portrays Harnic Gods as Evil or Good - with a methods that strikes me as you said as "childish interpretations".

My only way to reconcile the Harnic Gods in a way that does not seem like B-Fantasy Movie religions is to look at them as Harnic Religion as described by canon as if it were as seen through the eyes of Laranians.

Unfortunately, as described by canon, the Harnic gods fit well into the D&D alignment wheel per Ratter's classifications.

The Idea of evil gods as a common worship of man does not make sense to me. "Gods wishes" may expect retribution, can even be bloodthirsty to non-adherant (The God of the Old Testament is very much this way), but are not inherently evil. There may be an Evil one of a Pantheon, Loki can be this way in some manifestations, but he is a pantheon member, not a god worshipped as a head of the religion. If anything, he makes for good stories and is there to teach lessons as an example (generally of behavior NOT to follow).

Even with Tolkien - Evil gods were not worshipped merely for that purpose by most. Yes, Morgoth and Sauron had their worshippers among humanity, but these were worshipping out of fear of a god that existed on their plane.

Some may say that it is different on Harn because the gods are either "real" or manifest themselves on the physical plane. But that is not the same as actual residence on the plane.

Ilvir does indeed have a residence on the plane - or is at least physcally acessible from the mortal plane - but he does not have his 1000's of followers gaurding his block of real estate as for instance Sauron does in Mordor.

Now, if the Gods of Harn did not have the Concordant in effect, things could well be different.

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Hmm Gurthang. What a nice name for a sword....

Actually it appears you expect it so much that you manage to find insults directed at you when their target are in fact the hypothetical (and dumber-than-life) GM and player you were portraying in that post of yours above. But, you know, jumping to an erroneous conclusion after a partial reading of things is something I've come to expect of you over these years.

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«Fair is what we see, Fairer what we have perceived, Fairest what is still in veil.»
—Nicolaus Stenonius