DnD Head Canons

[Grey Watcher]

I'll be honest, The Burning Hate headcanon has always bothered me. It's kind of a pizza-cutter (all edge and no point) of an idea, trying too hard to be cynical and I don't get why it's caught on so strongly with D&D players...

I can see the appeal from a DM perspective: if you think your campaign is going to get near or all the way to level 20 (or whatever the equivalent in your system of choice is), it's a decent hook. Unless your whole table are completely new to the game and its attendant lore, you don't have to waste time explaining who Pelor is. And having a what TV Tropes so succinctly calls a Villain With Good Publicity gives a good reason why you can't call in the proverbial cavalry of more powerful entities: everyone's either been suckered by the ruse or is in on it.

Alternatively, it being so wildly incorrect and absurd can be a great world building detail. Your setting's answer to flat earthers. I guess that's what I would want to play with with the character I described. In character, he's thoroughly convinced, but until at best the very end of the campaign, you'd never really know. The end of his arc would be either triumphant validation or a bitter disillusionment.

I guess I'm not 100% on board with buying into it as true per se, but I certainly like it as an idea that's out there in the setting's culture. The fact that it does rely on such flimsy evidence, involves heaping load of Begging the Question, and runs entirely on confirmation bias isn't a bug, it's a feature.

Though I do think plenty of people readily do accept, even IRL, that that's what the character is meant to be. I think that tendency speaks to something well beyond the game. Maybe because we're so used to mortal authorities using a righteous facade to hide unscrupulous behavior that we're inclined to assume the same of gods. Maybe it's just a tendency in the modern world towards iconoclasm: look around the internet and you can find plenty of blogs, articles, and whathaveyous detailing how this or that figure who's widely regarded as heroic or a role model has done awful things. So, again, maybe there's an inclination to assume that a god must be the same way. Therefore, as soon as someone posts a silly joke about deliberately parsing everything in the worst way and leaping on editing errors as evidence, everyone loves it and it goes all viral and stuff.

Like I said, I think it's best used as an in-universe plot element or setting detail, with the truth of the matter only established if the campaign is specifically geared towards that (whether by the DM's original intent or whether driven there by the player). And honestly, maybe not even then.

EDIT: Oh, and speaking of the in-universe world-building, plot hook uses, it's also a decent way to do the "dangerous underground cult" thing without having to have everyone worshipping the Dark God of Wedgies and Obvious Ironic Comeuppance. I mean, you can only have so many people buy into the Original Position fallacy before it starts to just get a bit stale.