"I notice that there are two evil gods in play here," you say. "Can you tell us a little bit about that?"
"Yeah," I say. "I can tell you a little bit about that. I hate traditional Good Vs Evil scenarios. I think that's boring."
"So you go for Evil Vs Evil instead."
"In this case, yes. I once ran a game where the primary axis of conflict was Law Vs Chaos, and that was pretty interesting. You had Lawful Good and Lawful Evil both on the same team working against Chaos. That game unfortunately didn't last all that long."
"Shame," you offer.
"Yes," I reply. "I find that particular conflict much more interesting than Good Vs Evil, and this gets into why I like D&D's alignment system. It gives you a way to organise your universe. In 5th edition there are very few game mechanics that actually rely on alignment. 3rd edition's detect evil spell became 5th edition's detect evil and good, which doesn't detect alignments, it detects interplanar beings and undead. And a couple of other things, I think. I'd have to look it up."
"So the purpose of alignments is to set up the basic conflict of the campaign," you say. "There are many potential conflict lines running between the nine points on two axes."
"Exactly," I reply. "So in ATPK, I have defined the fundamental axis of conflict to be between Carl's Lawful Evil god and the cult's Chaotic Evil god. As Carl says, he just wants to own the universe, they want to destroy it."
"So are we going to spoil who the two gods are?" you ask.
"Why not?" I reply. I turn to the camera. "Readers, if you're not fully caught up with the story, there are spoilers ahead. Go back and check to make sure. So Carl's god..."
"The one whose name can't be spoken to the uninitiated?"
"Right. That's Asmodeus. He was an archdevil who became a god because he murdered another god and stole that god's godhood, or something. I've always liked the archdevils better than the archdemons, though they can be interesting too. But given the choice, I'll take the archdevils and Lawful Evil as one of the endpoints of my conflict."
"The other endpoint is..." you prompt.
"Tharizdun. Specifically, Tharizdun basically as described in Monte Cook's excellent campaign Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil, which remains my favourite self-contained campaign in D&D history."
"That sounds like high praise," you say.
"It actually makes me a bit uncomfortable when you complement me," I say.
"Oh, okay, sorry," you say.
"It's okay," I say. "Monte Cook, by the way, was also the author of my favourite D&D book of all the D&D books I own, which is the Book of Vile Darkness. So much about how I feel about portraying evil in a D&D game I get from this book. Including a vague interpretation of how that book portrays Asmodeus, though I've also made up a fair bit about that, like how the faith has rules and strictures that can nontheless be worked within, which is an idea I think I got from some other D&D book about clerics."
"Oh, interesting."
"Yes," I say. "Basically, Carl's character is the character that Monte Cook taught me how to play."
"Do you think he's reading this?" you ask.
"I have no idea," I say.
