I was gonna put this in its own thread, but I figured that it would be pointless to waste a thread already devoted to 4th Edition. So...
[glow=red,2,300]Gods, Monsters, and Alignments[/glow]
Gotta love the glow.
Well, since I'm on the last stretch of my Iraq deployment, I can't get mail, so I can't get the 4E FR book. For more information on FR, here's the wiki site:
forgottenrealms.wikia.com/wiki/Main_PageNow, I can tell you about the main books. Take everything you know of alignments, gods, and monsters, and toss them.
While much is still the same, more has changed.
First off, there's only 5 alignments: Lawful Good, Good, Unaligned, Evil, and Chaotic Evil. My own opinion? Not sure what to think. I mean, while yes, it does kill off some specifics, such as "What if he follows laws to the letter, but doesn't care about good or evil?" It does also simplify things. Namely, the gray-area alignments of Lawful Evil and Chaotic Good are gone. One thing I noticed was that LE characters and monsters are often seen as the "lesser" of the two evils. Merely as rat-bastard lawyers rather than true world-threatening badasses. Whereas LN and CN can easily be filed under "unaligned", especially CN, while NE characters typically acted one way or another in games. CG characters would sometimes fight good-aligned people due to whatever lawful matter was at hand, or, just like CN characters, simply think with their proverbial "dicks".
Here's the breakdown, Lawful Good, same as always. Good: Prefers freedom and kindness, Unaligned: well, obvious. Evil: Not quite as lawful as before, but prefers oppressive government as long as they benefit, CE: only cares about what they want, not as retarded or restless (in some cases) just as destructive and selfish.
Now, as for monsters, there are huge changes. Primarily amongst planar characters. You have 2 main classifications for planars, Immortal (Angels, Devils, certain Abominations like the Astral Stalker and Atropal) and Elemental (Archons, Demons, and again, certain Abominations like Blood Fiends and the Tarrasque).
Immortal has to do with the gods and the Astral Sea (Which includes Celestia and the Nine Hells) Elemental is the Primordials and the Elemental Chaos (Which includes the Abyss).
Now, I'll just go down the alphabet. Abominations are new, badass epic monsters. Angels have been completely fucked with. I don't really like the way they changed them. They have blank faces, lower bodies that look like energy trails (Think genies from old cartoons) still have wings, and, well, are of any alignment (this one annoys me most). They are servants of all gods (as are some devils, but more on this), so, there are evil angels. With this new thing, there are no longer any real paragons of light and good. Or, at least not like the angels used to be.
Now, as for Archons, whew! A doozy. Remember how they were kinda like redundant angel knockoffs and lawful good furries? No longer. Think angels, once again, but elemental, and Chaotic Evil. They have no wings, but have the same lower body as the angels, and are composed entirely of an element (like ice, fire, etc). Actually, this one is pretty cool.
Devils and Demons. I lumped them together because of a few major changes. I actually like what they've done. Devils and Demons are more focused. Demons are pure evil engines of destruction and madness, while Devils are corruptors of souls. Basically, it's like this, the Abyss was created by a Chained God (Which sucks kinda, because before this came out, I was gonna write something on Genarml being credited with that feat), and some of the most powerful elementals came in contact with it, becoming some of the first demon princes, the Abyss then spewed infinite amounts of them. Oh, and most demons in the Monster Manual are epic and a good portion are elite (Elite monsters are as strong as 2 monsters of the same level), they are also immune to fear (most of them, anyways). Balors, Glabrezus, Mariliths, and Goristros are all Elite, all but the Goristro are epic, the goristro is level 19, though. While Hezrous are now epic. This should give you a better idea of what you're fucking with when you go up against demons now.
Devils, however, were once angels, but had committed deicide. They were punished by the gods for their treason and cursed with monstrous forms. The Nine Hells is their prison, and Asmodeus is their god (more on him later). It should also be of note that Succubi are no longer demons, they are devils.
As for the gods, I can only cover what OC has. Basically, these original dieties: Heironious (God of Justice) Hextor (God of Tyranny), St. Cuthbert (God of Duty), Erythnul (God of Slaughter), and many others are gone. They unified the racial gods as well. For instance Grumsh is simply the god of slaughter and destruction, orcs are his main worshippers, Bane is the god of war and conquest, with goblins as his main worshippers (Maglubyet is an exarch of Bane), and Asmodeus is the god of tyranny and domination, while Bahamut is the god of justice. I don't know how this will effect the Forgotten Realms setting, but I'm hoping that they'll kill off some of the more lame gods and goddesses, like Loviatar, Liira, Sharess, (Yeah, it won't happen) Bane, and, well, maybe some elven gods too.