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The other gods just relate to each other too much. I felt Raven Queen was the only one to stray off from the norm a bit more than the others. But i agree with you, Raven Queen has too much popularity.

johnthedm7000 wrote:

And I think that a lot of people who want to move past the "shiny good vs. ugly evil" dichotomy that has plagued D&D for years really like that.

I disagree. I'd say OD&D and 2e were very much "Shiny Good vs. Ugly Evil" but 3rd, 3.5 and beyond it seems very much that neutrality is the cool kid on the block. It comes down to the assumption, if you don't care, you're cool. Evil is for losers with mommy & daddy problems and Good is for those tools who always have their head in the clouds. To me, neutral just came off as wishy-washy. Never want to commit to one 'side'. Pair this with the innate "Ooh's" and "Aah's" of Death gods, and it explains the popularity. I mean, anyone remember how many Ruby Knights and Crusaders of Wee Jas we had when 3.5 was the current edition? They were everywhere.

Kelemvor, definately.

Because I have it on good authority that the Raven Queen is kind of a hottie.

1. Death gods are generally inherently cool. I blame Bleach for this in recent times, but it's only one example among many (Death Note was a better movie anyway).

2. The Raven Queen is a female god (also inherently cool) who isn't a homey, motherly protector or a bunnies-and-fuzzy-things love goddess; nor is she a "I am b****, hear me roar" wrathful dominatrix type.

3. The Raven Queen is the "darkest" of the 4e "PC-available" gods overall, and certainly the darkest of the females. The loner anti-hero is a very popular archetype right now, and the RQ is the easiest way to achieve that among the deities without having to resort to Lolth and all of the exasperated groaning and Salvatore references that come with that.

4. It's also worth mentioning that the way the RQ approaches death and that she's not an evil death god also help. Her outlook and portfolio lend themselves well to any character who is surrounded by death or risking death on a daily basis... which rather perfectly describes most adventurers. Think about it; if you're putting your life on the line every day to kill man-eating monsters and take their stuff, wouldn't you want to be in good with the chick who's going to be your new landlord when (not if) you shuffle off?



Wee Jas isn't evil, but he is vaguely ridiculous in a you-can't-be-serious way; Kelemvor is trying really, really hard to convince people he's not evil, but nobody actually believes him; and the Keeper is a out-and-out, soul-eating, enemy-of-all-life villain even if he's not actually evil.

Given the options given to us in the past, all of the lone-wolf, Cloud-wannabe antiheroes who've always wanted to worship a death god but couldn't because their DM wouldn't let them or because the campaign's available death god was stupid are jumping at the chance.

Of the 4e characters I've played so far, I've had a Paladin of Erathis, a Ranger who revered Avandra and an Ioun-worshiping Wizard, but two of the concepts I'm eager to try out are a Paladin of the Raven Queen (for many of the same reasons TigerDave illustrated) and a Hellock who has taken up her worship in the hope that it will allow him to be free of his pact when he dies and go on to the afterlife in peace, rather than being dragged down into the hells.

I also find the image of a cleric of the Raven Queen rather appealing -a traveling priest who will fight with all his heart to stave off an undead attack or save a life wrongly taken, but won't lift a finger to cure a fatal but natural disease. That, however, requires a group that wouldn't throw me in front of a train for doing so; a thing I currently lack.