While not as problematic as Morgion, or, say, Zeboim, Chemosh is still the "baddie" who apparently has nothing else to do in his eternity than torment and depress people.
Undeath is too much a fascinating concept to be left as it is now.
Constraints
All gods of Krynn must have an active, inspiring contribution and teaching to soul's evolution and learning. This constribution/teaching does not need to be pleasant, but it has to make sense, even in a twisted way.
The corollary is that priests of all gods should have a philosophy/teaching that makes sense, even in a twisted way: No one should become priest of Chemosh by being coerced into it. If one thing, faith should be sincere.
The modified god (here, Chemosh) should remain recognizable, and, perhaps, from casual examination, should appear like the original version. Only when digging deeper will someone (a reader, or a character) would realize the difference.
Inspirations
For our rework of Chemosh, we need to look around to see if there are interesting concepts we could borrow.
Original Chemosh
The wiki entry for Chemosh is quite extensive, but spends a lot of time in stories where he is not shown in his best light, to be fair.
From the Holy Orders of the Stars sourcebook, we have the following attributes for Chemosh:- Portfolio: Death, the undead, murder, false hope
- Worshipers: Crazed cultists, assassins, necromancers
- Domains: Death, Evil, Trickery, Undeath†
The really part I want to work with is that his portfolio/domains include both death and undeath.
Examples not to take inspiration from
Both Pathfinder's Pharasma and Exandria's Raven Queen are not sources of inspiration. These gods strive to maintain some kind of status quo between life and death, and undeath is not their focus (and is usually a problem for them).
In the same way, Death, the Fourth Horseman of the Apocalypse, the Grim Reaper, and Orcus (despite being as Chemosh-y as Tiamat is Takhisis-y) are not sources of inspiration.
The Necromancer Archetype
A necromancer isn't just a practitioner of dark, or demonic magics. A necromancer deals in the magics beyond life and death. While this knowledge is not necessarily "evil" per se, it is clearly violating classical and modern societal taboos about life and death.
This taboo is very interesting, if we can somehow integrate it in the narrative. The ultimate necromancer might be quite active, striving to irrevocably change known and accepted laws of life in the universe, for some reason (power over the dead, desire to mitigate the cruelty of death, etc.).
Partial Conclusion
There aren't a lot of satisfying inspiration.
Chemosh, divine power of Permanence
Chemosh represents the divine power of Permanence. That is, how a soul might resist change induced by external factors, and thus, evolve only in a way it wants, at its convenience.
The Cycle of Souls is imposed by the current law of Krynn's universe, and is, in Chemosh's viewpoint, by design messy and lossy: How many memories are lost to time? How much enlightenment has been cut short by a premature death, and reset to zero?
This cycle is deemed necessary, and even desirable, by most of Krynn's gods. But as far as Chemosh is concerned, it is widely inefficient. And Chemosh believes that, with his own divine power of permanence, he can cheat the process, and foster the souls Chemosh favors into an accelerated ascension.
To mortals learning about the truth of the Cycle of Souls, the mortality of their own identity, their own avatar is the real tragedy, and Chemosh offers a hope to fix that. This is why Chemosh favors necromancers, as they are the only one able to research necromancy, and push its limits beyond. Chemosh hopes that, with the right inspiration, and with the right necromancers, the god might unearth the secret to circumvent the limitations of the Cycle of Souls.
This is clearly the most outrageous violations of the Laws of Krynn, and Chemosh knows the others gods, no matter the pantheon, would not let that happen, for Chemosh would then be all-powerful, dwarfing both Paladine, Takhisis and Gilean.
So the god works slowly, through indirection, and showing less ambition, and more glee at witnessing the antics of the undead puppets shambling their way around Krynn.
Conclusion
I know, the moment I decided I wanted to do something like Death Knights of Krynn in my campaign, I needed more than just "Lord Soth wants to invade Solamnia".
In my humble opinion, the undead are the only "fiends" that matter, the universal creature opposing and/or feeding from life, that were universal in every culture, which automatically increased the importance of Chemosh in my campaign.
By giving Chemosh, something more than wanting to spawn undead, and seduce Mina, I make it (again, in my humble opinion) a very, very frightening god, worthy of being opposed by heroes, beyond the undead-rising monster of the week.
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