| T O P I C R E V I E W |
| Alexander Clark |
Posted - 11 Mar 2021 : 23:08:44
So I found several threads claiming that Ed said a young child's soul goes to their parents' deity.
"Interestingly, children and infants who die are not classified as faithless. They are picked up by the celestial agents of their parent's deity."
But they don't quote/provide the link, sadly.
The closest thing to providing a source I could find was that:
"Indeed. There's several points of discussion in Ed's 06 replies." But I skimmed the Questions for Ed Greenwood (2006) and could not find anything about that subject. The closest Ed Greenwood's comment I could find is actually in Questions for Ed Greenwood (2007) and it's interesting, but not exactly that.
Firstly: I cannot comment on Zak; that’s a question for Bob to answer in his own way, at a time of his choosing.
Secondly: please remember there’s no “God’s guidance” in the Realms in a singular sense; the Realms has many gods, not One. Nor does the Christian, Jewish, Zoroastrian, etc. “burn in hell” coda to be expected or necessarily follows.
Thirdly: No soul is doomed through an inability to make choices, only by the choices that soul has made.
In other words, innocents do not have a single predetermined fate (despite the propaganda of some Faerûnian sages and churches; i.e. what you may have read in various published adventures or sourcebooks).
There are (obviously) many gaps in the knowledge folk of Faerûn have of their own cosmology, and even more in what we gamers and readers know of it; there are errors and omissions in the published canon (and NOTHING is eternal, as the changing divine roster and multiverse views prove).
I cannot (NDAs again) close all those gaps, clean up all the fuzzy bits, and Reveal All, here or in print anywhere soon. So you’ll just have to trust me when I say that all souls have fates, mortals cannot yet know all of those fates nor reliably know what fate a specific innocent soul will end up experiencing. So whatever a DM decides, holds true for that campaign and that soul - - but any wise DM will discuss religious beliefs with all of his/her players beforehand, and establish the “comfortable for all” ground rules. This is definitely a place where the game should be tailored to each group of gamers. I have never been a fan of either predestiny or absolutes - - and if you examine the D&D rules carefully and dispassionately, throughout all their editions, neither is the game system. It embraces concepts of good and evil, of achievement and teamwork, of ethical and religious belief and system, but it is posited on player characters having freedom in their actions (hence, “beating” predestination), and having to make life choices continually (arguing against absolutes).
This “wiggle room” or “elbow room” is the space we all need to tell stories and have adventures.
Can anyone provide the actual Ed Greenwood's quote about parents? |
| 30 L A T E S T R E P L I E S (Newest First) |
| Outlaw Pope |
Posted - 29 May 2022 : 11:30:20
You know, when it comes to the wall in particular- its purpose. I kind of feel that with how old and unknowable (due to mortal propaganda being most viewpoints in the lorebooks) - feel like its some sort of protection, explicitly, from the Abyss.
In FR the Abyssal Powers have a lot influence typically - until 4e, almost all realms big bad contact were demons of some variety (some of which like Orcus, Lolth, Baphomat, and the... Prince of Wrath, I think are also deities). There were like 5-10 human empires influenced / controlled by / molded by demons. There is an entire subrace of elves and orcs spawned from demons. There are countries founded with the aid of demons (Thay, Eltab).
Demons seem not to obey the 'rules' and the other fiends of note - the Baatorian devils have an arrangement with Faerun's office of death so they do not need to scrounge.
With how little most of the outer planes aside from the Abyss and maybe the Shadow Realm directly connect to the setting I would probably say it has some closeness/worry/issue with demons.
Mostly pulled from those pre-4e things.
4e went LOL DEVILS AND HELL and it hasn't really changed much since then - but they never really went into why demons/their influence were so prevalent over devils in setting before that either. |
| Wooly Rupert |
Posted - 15 Jan 2022 : 05:16:05
quote:
Originally posted by sleyvas
quote:
Originally posted by Zeromaru X
I just fail to understand why no god said anything when Tyr killed Helm when he felt Helm was stealing his girl, but all the godly bureaucracy will put the scream in the heavens (literally) if some god goes to Myrkul or Kelemvor to say a thing or two about the Wall...
Wow, Leira really is powerful. I thought people would have seen through that lie about Tyr and Helm.... I mean "gods fighting over a girl"... when I first saw it, I was like "man, the good gods really are so unimaginative... not like the evil gods who come up with more believable BS for people to try and swallow"... but people still think its true... I wonder what Tyr and Helm owe her for her aid in that?
I don't know what bothers me more about that storyline: just how weak it was, or the fact that someone thought it up and was obviously able to convince someone else that it was worth including.
|
| Azar |
Posted - 15 Jan 2022 : 00:47:07
There are times when the Faerunian gods are truly incomprehensible and there are times when they resemble the distant Grecian deities in temperament. |
| sleyvas |
Posted - 14 Jan 2022 : 22:56:59
quote:
Originally posted by Zeromaru X
I just fail to understand why no god said anything when Tyr killed Helm when he felt Helm was stealing his girl, but all the godly bureaucracy will put the scream in the heavens (literally) if some god goes to Myrkul or Kelemvor to say a thing or two about the Wall...
Wow, Leira really is powerful. I thought people would have seen through that lie about Tyr and Helm.... I mean "gods fighting over a girl"... when I first saw it, I was like "man, the good gods really are so unimaginative... not like the evil gods who come up with more believable BS for people to try and swallow"... but people still think its true... I wonder what Tyr and Helm owe her for her aid in that?
|
| Azar |
Posted - 14 Jan 2022 : 21:02:31
quote:
Originally posted by HighOne
quote:
Originally posted by Azar
quote:
Originally posted by HighOne
I think they're going to avoid the question, because every possible answer is controversial. It's obvious that some people find the Wall offensive, and the setting creators can't go on record about how the good-aligned gods feel about it without violating some people's conception of good. And once you do that, you lose those people as customers, because a setting loses its verisimilitude when its supposedly all-powerful, benevolent gods are revealed to be evil morons.
The only way the setting creators can avoid the problem is by continuing to ignore it, or by outright destroying or retconning the Wall. Personally, my money is on "ignore," because that seems to be par for the course these days.
There is a degree of wiggle room as to how the gods feel on particular subjects, but they and their followers have been fairly well-defined and their Alignments are evident; the idea that these entities wouldn't have designs for or against this Wall of the Faithless - a massive supernatural ontological construct - is absurd. Whether they are forbidden to act by some afterlife bureaucracy or not, there can still be opinions formed on the matter.
Sure, and what if the official stance is, "Faithlessness is evil, therefore all the good-aligned gods support the Wall of the Faithless?" You know that's not going to sit well with some people, right? Same with, "The good-aligned gods don't like the wall, but they live with it," because that's not going far enough for some people (as evidenced by this thread). Whatever the official stance on the Wall is, it's going to violate some people's conception of a goodly alignment, and that will cause those people to lose interest in the setting. That's why making any definite statement on the gods' feelings about the Wall is a losing proposition for the setting designers.
Quite frankly, I have no interest in people that are incapable of separating reality from fiction. |
| HighOne |
Posted - 14 Jan 2022 : 16:52:36
quote:
Originally posted by Azar
quote:
Originally posted by HighOne
I think they're going to avoid the question, because every possible answer is controversial. It's obvious that some people find the Wall offensive, and the setting creators can't go on record about how the good-aligned gods feel about it without violating some people's conception of good. And once you do that, you lose those people as customers, because a setting loses its verisimilitude when its supposedly all-powerful, benevolent gods are revealed to be evil morons.
The only way the setting creators can avoid the problem is by continuing to ignore it, or by outright destroying or retconning the Wall. Personally, my money is on "ignore," because that seems to be par for the course these days.
There is a degree of wiggle room as to how the gods feel on particular subjects, but they and their followers have been fairly well-defined and their Alignments are evident; the idea that these entities wouldn't have designs for or against this Wall of the Faithless - a massive supernatural ontological construct - is absurd. Whether they are forbidden to act by some afterlife bureaucracy or not, there can still be opinions formed on the matter.
Sure, and what if the official stance is, "Faithlessness is evil, therefore all the good-aligned gods support the Wall of the Faithless?" You know that's not going to sit well with some people, right? Same with, "The good-aligned gods don't like the wall, but they live with it," because that's not going far enough for some people (as evidenced by this thread). Whatever the official stance on the Wall is, it's going to violate some people's conception of a goodly alignment, and that will cause those people to lose interest in the setting. That's why making any definite statement on the gods' feelings about the Wall is a losing proposition for the setting designers. |
| Wooly Rupert |
Posted - 14 Jan 2022 : 04:53:35
quote:
Originally posted by Zeromaru X
I just fail to understand why no god said anything when Tyr killed Helm when he felt Helm was stealing his girl, but all the godly bureaucracy will put the scream in the heavens (literally) if some god goes to Myrkul or Kelemvor to say a thing or two about the Wall...
Again, there is no proof of any of this. We don't know that none of the gods said anything about Tyr and Helm. We don't know if anyone has said anything about the Wall.
I don't understand the continued assumption that absence of evidence is evidence of absence -- especially with the gods, who get very little on-screen time. |
| Zeromaru X |
Posted - 14 Jan 2022 : 03:56:14
I just fail to understand why no god said anything when Tyr killed Helm when he felt Helm was stealing his girl, but all the godly bureaucracy will put the scream in the heavens (literally) if some god goes to Myrkul or Kelemvor to say a thing or two about the Wall... |
| Azar |
Posted - 14 Jan 2022 : 00:04:19
quote:
Originally posted by HighOne
I think they're going to avoid the question, because every possible answer is controversial. It's obvious that some people find the Wall offensive, and the setting creators can't go on record about how the good-aligned gods feel about it without violating some people's conception of good. And once you do that, you lose those people as customers, because a setting loses its verisimilitude when its supposedly all-powerful, benevolent gods are revealed to be evil morons.
The only way the setting creators can avoid the problem is by continuing to ignore it, or by outright destroying or retconning the Wall. Personally, my money is on "ignore," because that seems to be par for the course these days.
There is a degree of wiggle room as to how the gods feel on particular subjects, but they and their followers have been fairly well-defined and their Alignments are evident; the idea that these entities wouldn't have designs for or against this Wall of the Faithless - a massive supernatural ontological construct - is absurd. Whether they are forbidden to act by some afterlife bureaucracy or not, there can still be opinions formed on the matter.
quote:
Originally posted by LordofBones
The gods of good can only object on moral grounds
If they have, I'd like to hear these objections (even if raised only amongst themselves). |
| sleyvas |
Posted - 13 Jan 2022 : 23:55:02
quote:
Originally posted by Zeromaru X
Remember that Wildemount 5e uses the lore of the 4e Raven Queen. Both lores are current. Heck, 4e's is even more current than 5e's since Wildemount is newer than Mordenkainen's.
Anyways, there is even a more lore friendly explanation for a second Raven Queen: one of the potential endings for Prince of Undeath is that Orcus killed the Raven Queen. I don't remember the exact finale of that adventure (going to check when I'm home), but, this can explain the existence of a second Raven Queen. However, she would be rather "recent", as those adventures happen in an equivalent timeline to 1479...
right as Kiaransalee appears back in the realms. |
| Zeromaru X |
Posted - 13 Jan 2022 : 16:45:38
Remember that Wildemount 5e uses the lore of the 4e Raven Queen. Both lores are current. Heck, 4e's is even more current than 5e's since Wildemount is newer than Mordenkainen's.
Anyways, there is even a more lore friendly explanation for a second Raven Queen: one of the potential endings for Prince of Undeath is that Orcus killed the Raven Queen. I don't remember the exact finale of that adventure (going to check when I'm home), but, this can explain the existence of a second Raven Queen. However, she would be rather "recent", as those adventures happen in an equivalent timeline to 1479... |
| Storyteller Hero |
Posted - 13 Jan 2022 : 06:18:23
quote:
Originally posted by Zeromaru X
quote:
Originally posted by Storyteller Hero
For my Kelemvor pamphlet on DMsGuild,
Talking about this, I'm wondering if you're going to update it to include the Raven Queen. I'm curious about what spin you're going to give them to her relationship with Kel. Heck, a Raven Queen pamphlet will be great, as well m
I had considered adding the Raven Queen to the Court of Souls, but her obsession with the past seems a bit incompatible with sending a proxy or avatar to deal with souls she likely won't even obtain for her realm.
In my opinion, I think Kelemvor would be treating the existence of the Raven Queen with caution, due to the mysteries about her identity and the strangeness of her latest activities. Perhaps an invitation sent, but not answered.
If combining different editions' lore, the current Raven Queen might actually be the second Raven Queen, with the first one slain out of vengeance at the hands of Nerull. The ascension ritual that went awry for the current Raven Queen might have involved subsuming the leftover divine essence of the previous Raven Queen.
The current Raven Queen, in her pursuit of memories, might actually become a potential threat to the Wall should any of its prisoners hold any vital information relevant to the Raven Queen's scouring of the past.
|
| Zeromaru X |
Posted - 12 Jan 2022 : 18:49:22
quote:
Originally posted by Storyteller Hero
For my Kelemvor pamphlet on DMsGuild,
Talking about this, I'm wondering if you're going to update it to include the Raven Queen. I'm curious about what spin you're going to give them to her relationship with Kel. Heck, a Raven Queen pamphlet will be great, as well m |
| Wooly Rupert |
Posted - 12 Jan 2022 : 14:31:19
quote:
Originally posted by HighOne
quote:
Originally posted by Azar
You won't find less of a stickler for adherence to "canon" than me, but I'd like to know if the Wall of the Faithless is still standing as of 5e; if the construction remains erect, then we can ask setting creators (perhaps the big cheese himself) how the Good gods feel about its presence and/or what (if any) measures to ameliorate the situation they've taken.
I think they're going to avoid the question, because every possible answer is controversial. It's obvious that some people find the Wall offensive, and the setting creators can't go on record about how the good-aligned gods feel about it without violating some people's conception of good. And once you do that, you lose those people as customers, because a setting loses its verisimilitude when its supposedly all-powerful, benevolent gods are revealed to be evil morons.
The only way the setting creators can avoid the problem is by continuing to ignore it, or by outright destroying or retconning the Wall. Personally, my money is on "ignore," because that seems to be par for the course these days.
Honestly, I don't think they were actively ignoring it, as much as there was no reason to even think of it. It's never had an in-game impact and even in the fiction, its utility was very limited. It was mainly a plot device in one novel and has had almost no relevance beyond that. |
| Eldacar |
Posted - 12 Jan 2022 : 12:19:18
quote:
Originally posted by Azar
You won't find less of a stickler for adherence to "canon" than me, but I'd like to know if the Wall of the Faithless is still standing as of 5e; if the construction remains erect, then we can ask setting creators (perhaps the big cheese himself) how the Good gods feel about its presence and/or what (if any) measures to ameliorate the situation they've taken.
It was removed from the SCAG book as part of errata released last year.
Previously, the paragraph said:
"Souls that are unclaimed by the servants of the gods are judged by Kelemvor, who decides the fate of each one. Some are charged with serving as guides for other lost souls, while others are transformed into squirming larvae and cast into the dust. The truly false and faithless are mortared into the Wall of the Faithless, the great barrier that bounds the City of the Dead, where their souls slowly dissolve and begin to become part of the stuff of the Wall itself."
Currently, with the errata, it says:
"Souls that are unclaimed by the servants of the gods are judged by Kelemvor, who decides the fate of each one. Some are charged with serving as guides for other lost souls, while others are transformed into squirming larvae and cast into the dust."
It's arguable as to whether it is better or worse. Is being mortared into the Wall (where your soul will dissolve as you are used as part of the battlements protecting Kelemvor's realm from demon/devil raids on other souls) better or worse than being turned into larvae and tossed away for all eternity? Or an eternity until presumably you dissolve. Or a demon or devil picks you up. Or somebody accidentally squishes you on the way to their own judgement. |
| Storyteller Hero |
Posted - 12 Jan 2022 : 08:20:52
quote:
Originally posted by HighOne
The only way the setting creators can avoid the problem is by continuing to ignore it, or by outright destroying or retconning the Wall. Personally, my money is on "ignore," because that seems to be par for the course these days.
For my Kelemvor pamphlet on DMsGuild, I set up a system of rules for the Wall that address potential issues and conflicts that would come from an oversimplified approach. There are exceptions, appeals, and additional hearings baked into the system to minimize the possibility of offensively unfair judgements and conflicts with other deities. It might not be perfect since I didn't go to law school but it should hopefully smooth things out for DnD campaigns that use the pamphlet.
At the end of the pamphlet, I adapted an Ed Greenwood tweet with additional lore from Magic of Incarnum to produce a theory of souls that potentially makes the Wall not so much of a dead end but the end of one's current perspective, since it can be argued the Wall is not a direct attack on the soul with a deity's power but an indirect destruction of its shell, leaving the core intact to reform elsewhere (though perhaps with amnesia).
|
| LordofBones |
Posted - 12 Jan 2022 : 06:06:14
quote:
Originally posted by Azar
I hope we can agree that the gods (the good ones, for certain) effectively throwing their hands up in a What can you do? gesture is quietly unsettling.
Here's the thing; they actually can't do anything without invading Bone Castle. The gods of good can only object on moral grounds, and Myrkul isn't some backwater demipower - he's a greater power, and the Faithless and the False are still dead.
I mean, even the Aesir had to politely ask Hel to cough up Baldur's soul and had to abide by her terms. The same goes here - the gods of good are moral crusaders, and invading the realm of another god who's just doing his job is just asking for retaliation. It's something better left to a discreet strike team.
It's better to concentrate on undermining Myrkul's worship and turn unbelievers to the devout, if only to deny Myrkul his kicks. |
| HighOne |
Posted - 12 Jan 2022 : 05:23:19
quote:
Originally posted by Azar
You won't find less of a stickler for adherence to "canon" than me, but I'd like to know if the Wall of the Faithless is still standing as of 5e; if the construction remains erect, then we can ask setting creators (perhaps the big cheese himself) how the Good gods feel about its presence and/or what (if any) measures to ameliorate the situation they've taken.
I think they're going to avoid the question, because every possible answer is controversial. It's obvious that some people find the Wall offensive, and the setting creators can't go on record about how the good-aligned gods feel about it without violating some people's conception of good. And once you do that, you lose those people as customers, because a setting loses its verisimilitude when its supposedly all-powerful, benevolent gods are revealed to be evil morons.
The only way the setting creators can avoid the problem is by continuing to ignore it, or by outright destroying or retconning the Wall. Personally, my money is on "ignore," because that seems to be par for the course these days. |
| HighOne |
Posted - 12 Jan 2022 : 04:58:42
quote:
Originally posted by Wooly Rupert
We simply don't have enough facts about the Wall to make judgement calls like that.
We really don't know much about Forgotten Realms cosmology in general. And there are enough contradictions in what we do know to justify pretty much any interpretation. World Tree? Great Wheel? World Axis? These cosmologies all provide vastly different answers to fundamental questions. It's like having one sourcebook tell you that Waterdeep is a port city on the Sword Coast, another tell you that it's a tropical island in Zakhara, and another tell you that it's a halfling village in Luiren. Canon doesn't even really exist at that point. |
| Azar |
Posted - 12 Jan 2022 : 04:50:35
quote:
Originally posted by Wooly Rupert
quote:
Originally posted by Azar
I hope we can agree that the gods (the good ones, for certain) effectively throwing their hands up in a What can you do? gesture is quietly unsettling.
Can't agree, because we don't know that that's what the good deities did -- just like we don't know if there's some greater purpose that makes the good deities accept it as a necessary evil.
We simply don't have enough facts about the Wall to make judgement calls like that.
You won't find less of a stickler for adherence to "canon" than me, but I'd like to know if the Wall of the Faithless is still standing as of 5e; if the construction remains erect, then we can ask setting creators (perhaps the big cheese himself) how the Good gods feel about its presence and/or what (if any) measures to ameliorate the situation they've taken. |
| Irennan |
Posted - 12 Jan 2022 : 04:36:41
I believe we need also to consider that there are gods caught in active conflicts with certain other gods (example: Selune and Shar). For such a god to attempt something as resource-draining as sieging the fugue plane, it would mean exposing themseves to massive losses--and potentially even an ultimate defeat in their ongoing conflict--because their nemesis would certainly try and exploit the moment of vulnerability to turn the tides in their favor. The situation here would be saving a small number of souls (the faithless aren't that many) vs. losing an ungodly (heh) number of lives, souls, celestials, and whatever you have that fights for the deity. Then you have the lesser deities, that could only join the forces of a greater deity that has decided to attack the fugue. Even then, some of these gods are in the same situation as Selune (example: Eilistraee already struggling in her conflict with Lolth).
Another thing to consider is that a lot of souls would fall in the hands of demons that would certainly exploit any attempt to attack the fugue. |
| Irennan |
Posted - 12 Jan 2022 : 04:33:53
We don't even know if any deity that is not a death god/god of the dead has accepted the wall. Might even be that Ao would come down and put a deity trying to interfere with the portfolio of the god of death in their place. |
| Wooly Rupert |
Posted - 12 Jan 2022 : 04:12:15
quote:
Originally posted by Azar
I hope we can agree that the gods (the good ones, for certain) effectively throwing their hands up in a What can you do? gesture is quietly unsettling.
Can't agree, because we don't know that that's what the good deities did -- just like we don't know if there's some greater purpose that makes the good deities accept it as a necessary evil.
We simply don't have enough facts about the Wall to make judgement calls like that. |
| Azar |
Posted - 12 Jan 2022 : 04:00:08
I hope we can agree that the gods (the good ones, for certain) effectively throwing their hands up in a What can you do? gesture is quietly unsettling. |
| Wooly Rupert |
Posted - 12 Jan 2022 : 03:51:06
quote:
Originally posted by Irennan
quote:
Originally posted by Zeromaru X
What does not make sense is people trying to justify the existence of the Wall as some good or necessary thing, when it was just Myrkul being an asshole.
Do we have anything like that in the lore? The only instance I can remember is Kelemvor in Mask of the Betrayer (which was a terrific story, despite that disappointing ending).
So far as I know, there is nothing explaining the purpose of the Wall, in canon lore. Therefore, we cannot definitively say it was or wasn't necessary, or that it was or wasn't malicious.
The latter certainly appears to be the case, but without something to back it up, it's just an opinion. |
| Irennan |
Posted - 12 Jan 2022 : 03:42:18
quote:
Originally posted by Zeromaru X
What does not make sense is people trying to justify the existence of the Wall as some good or necessary thing, when it was just Myrkul being an asshole.
Do we have anything like that in the lore? The only instance I can remember is Kelemvor in Mask of the Betrayer (which was a terrific story, despite that disappointing ending). |
| Zeromaru X |
Posted - 12 Jan 2022 : 03:33:14
Oh, I have no problem with Myrkul at all. The guy was an evil god, doing evil things. It makes sense. What does not make sense is people trying to justify the existence of the Wall as some good or necessary thing, when it was just Myrkul being an asshole. Now, Kelemvor keeping the Wall when he is supposed to be a neutral god who proclaims himself to be just... well, that is another beast. |
| LordofBones |
Posted - 12 Jan 2022 : 01:38:10
quote:
Originally posted by Zeromaru X
quote:
Originally posted by LordofBones
Myrkul, in that very same game, declares that he created the Wall, and nobody disagrees with him. Kelemvor's problem was that he couldn't tear down the Wall due to it being a judgement of his predecessor - and yes, Myrkul was well within his rights to create the Wall. Myrkul's problem was that he got too big for his britches, not that he was mismanaging his office as Lord of the Dead. There are of course deities who disagreed on how Myrkul managed his job, but for the most part, he wasn't actually violating any kind of deific code of conduct with regards to how he ran his divine realm and carried out his job. He was serious enough about his job that he arranged for the deaths of those clerics who refused to tend to the dead during a plague.
And that's just Myrkul; everyone forgets that Jergal had the jobs of all the Dead Three - his underworld wasn't exactly cushy either.
Basically, the good deities probably hated how Myrkul ran Bone Castle, but couldn't actually do anything about it becuase he was still doing his job properly.
Yeah, sure. The point is the Wall, not Myrkul's job. Because Disbelieving has nothing to do with the Death portfolio. So, this was just Myrkul deciding for himself what to do with the souls of the Faithless, that according to Planescape just wander about (since no god accept them in their domains) and dissipate into nothingness in a painless way. Myrkul just decided they had to suffer for an eternity for whatever reason (his own amusement, it seems), and no other god said anything about it.
Generally speaking, death gods generally have full authority over their pantheons' dead. Sure, Lathander or Torm can kick a fuss and start a crusade against Myrkul, but he's still a god doing his job, even if it's with cruelty and dickishness. Intrapantheon open warfare is extremely rare, and frankly tearing down Myrkul's fence is secondary to preventing him from getting new bricks. Better to turn the Faithless and False already in the Realms to embracing worship, rather than invade a power's realm and provoke retaliation.
Your problem is that you think Myrkul has to be nice while administering to his duties as Lord of the Dead. Here's the thing; if Myrkul decided to turn Faerun's False and Faithless into a planar 'rent-a-chamberpot' business, it's still within his job responsibilities. Myrkul adding some new decor to Bone Castle isn't any different from Kelemvor renovating it; they're still doing their jobs, they just interpret their responsibilities differently. Notably, Jergal served them both faithfully and without complaint, so evidently he thought that Myrkul wasn't straying from his office. |
| Azar |
Posted - 11 Jan 2022 : 23:12:27
With that interpretation, I'm getting "protection racket" vibes à la the mafia. |
| CorellonsDevout |
Posted - 11 Jan 2022 : 21:24:02
quote:
Originally posted by Demzer
quote:
Originally posted by Zeromaru X
quote:
Originally posted by CorellonsDevout
Iirc (mind you, I don't know much about Planescape), those who are faithless don't dissipate--they just exist on the margins of the plane for a while, and have to work to earn their place.
If what you say is true, then the Wall is even more awful. Basically, tantamount to those people who kill homeless IRL...
Not to bash CorellonsDevout but their recollection is incomplete. Even discounting the fact that Planescape was built as probably the most unreliably narrated of the settings (so taking obscure info from there and abstracting to the Realms is a real stretch), the passages dealing with the afterlife in On Hallowed Ground paint a different picture.
I'm not going to copy/quote the full thing but I'm going to cite page numbers here for the following points.
1) People who don't believe that there is an afterlife dissipate. They don't believe in their own souls so they just cease to exist on death. [page 28, last paragraph];
2) People (ie. not extraplanar beings like angels, devils, demons, ethereal juggernauts, ...) that die end up on the Outer plane that more closely matched their alignment and belief system, if they happened to worship a Power (Planescape-speak for deities and other stuff of similar caliber) they end up in that Power's domain [page 29, second paragraph of the section "From here to there"];
3) People's souls ultimate goal is to merge with their ideal, be it the essence of the Outer Plane they ended up in or their patron deity. This might lead to an evolution and transformation of the soul in several stages but it ends up with merger [page 30, "The urge to merge" section];
4) Souls that start closer in belief to their ideal merge/evolve faster because their belief guides them in one of a miriad paths towards the evolution/merger. So-called "faithless" souls are left with no guidance and no hint at what to do and fumble until they find a way to evolve/merge [page 31, "Degrees of devotion" section]
So in Planescape lore a faithless goes to the Outer Planes regardless, in Forgotten Realms lore a faithless is bound to the whims of the ruling God of Death. That's it.
Points 1 and 4 were essentially what I said in regards to Planescape, as I was making the comparison between those labelled faithless in FR and those who were such in Planescape (at least according to On Hallowed Ground). I didn't mention the other points because my comment was about the fate of the faithles in particular.
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