We need quests. We need plot. We need story.

Gaear, I couldn't agree more. Evil is organized, and in many different ways. Even CE has its pecking orders, and they could and would work together, however poorly, to fend off attackers in their home. Where else are they going to go in the face of an invasion? A strong leader like Hedrack would drive them by fear alone (...he is the mouth of Iuz, after all...) if nothing else. The module even says they have a planned and coordinated defense if the party gets down to level 4, and that they'll set traps and mount counter attacks to incursions on the levels above. It's when the plans turn to shit that their true nature will show through, and it'll be everyone for themselves. This is why a coordinated party planning an attack can win if they have a plan and stick to it, even in the face of apparent defeat (...or victory, for that matter). This thing in a battle is called a turning point, and whoever gets it in their favor usually wins.

Gotta go...Battle Star starts in a few minutes....

 

I didn't mean to suggest that evil is disorganized. Obviously a major compelling force could wrangle ogres and bugbears and such into an army. The point is that these individuals are not gravitating to each other on their own. When dealing with chaotic evil individuals especially, you're generally going to have self-interest at the bottom of whatever is motivating them. If a powerful force (hedrack, sauron, llolth, etc.) is required to make the group cohesive, that's an inherently unstable situation. In LOTR, you'll see groups of enemies quarrel and bicker, sometimes because of the presence/lure of the ring, and sometimes just because at the end of the day they don't like each other much. This causes small openings for the protagonists to exploit. Evil doesn't have to be seen as silly or bickering or stupid for this to be the case. Similar things can happen in good armies. The point is just that with so much self-interest at the bottom of "evil", this kind of thing is bound to be more present. A powerful force can curtail it to a great deal, but there's a constant struggle, at least in many situations. An evil army might bind together for a common cause, but usually only when the various members/groups identify doing so as being in their best interest. As soon as anything else presents itself as also being in their interest, the evil side will have problems. Compare this to an idealized crusader army, motivated by a cause beyond self-service. They're not going to have so many divisions. That's a generalization and is over-simple, but I always found some prescience in Tolkein's identification of and dealings with this kind of thought.

Anyway, a god who actively encouraged something like this would seem to be stupider than a god should be, or else there is an assumption that the infighting (survival of the fittest) will result in greater strength in the long run. If that's the case, then the cost of the divisive forces I talk about above are still there, but overshadowed by other considerations. This is fine, but then turning around and having, say, a character who "sees" (a factive word) that this infighting is holding his people back (I'm thinking of Salvatore's Drizzt) doesn't make much sense. Anyway, I think a fiction could go either way. I just don't quite get a fiction that goes both ways. That was my thought.

 

The example which came to my mind was of a Barbarian Horde. United for only as long as it takes to achive the objectives of the unification, with plenty of trouble along the way between factions & clans. Even the greatest of leaders can only keep it together for so long, then it's over.

As for CE gods, well...perhaps it's their chaotic nature that blinds them rather than stupidity.