Eric Greenhilt

[SpellthiefOfUr]

What's the reason behind Eric Greenhilt being in the LG afterlife? He certainly died too early to have deliberately made any moral or ethical stand in his short life.

My theory is that it's a combination of two things...
1. It was expedient for storytelling purposes; the Giant wanted a reunion between Roy and Eric and it was the easiest way to do so.
2. The Giant, being a quasi-SJW (for the lack of a better term), didn't think it'd be "right" for Eric to end up in the TN afterlife or elsewhere along with the implications of such. Could've been an interesting commentary on the D&D afterlife, but I suppose it also might've delved a bit more into real-life religion and philosophy than what the Giant (or the audience) would be comfortable with.

Was this explained elsewhere?

[Rogar Demonblud]

Considering most of the rest of the family is LG, maybe he already was aligned that way enough to get into Mount Celestia. Or they just decided that's where his mother was likely to end up.

[Keltest]

It took me like 15 minutes, but I finally tracked down the Giant's relevant post on the matter.

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?337752-Regarding-the-Moral-State-of-Young-Souls&p=17213673#post17213673

My favorite part is the marauding githyanki doctors.

[SpellthiefOfUr]

It took me like 15 minutes, but I finally tracked down the Giant's relevant post on the matter.

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?337752-Regarding-the-Moral-State-of-Young-Souls&p=17213673#post17213673

My favorite part is the marauding githyanki doctors.

Thanks for tracking that down!

Wow... that... was surprisingly close to the actual answer.

[Keltest]

Thanks for tracking that down!

Wow... that... was surprisingly close to the actual answer.

As the giant pointed out, its rather difficult to come up with an adequate answer that doesn't freak everyone the heck out in some way. "he stays there because his mom is there and he stays until he is ready to move on." is pretty much the only way to make the afterlife actually, you know, happy for someone. Not that I think an Infant would be likely to care all that much.

[malloyd]

As the giant pointed out, its rather difficult to come up with an adequate answer that doesn't freak everyone the heck out in some way. "he stays there because his mom is there and he stays until he is ready to move on." is pretty much the only way to make the afterlife actually, you know, happy for someone. Not that I think an Infant would be likely to care all that much.

An afterlife that is both supposed to be happy and allow you to still have meaningful experiences *must* be more complicated than you go someplace nice, because one of the things that makes experiences meaningful is that they can change you enough to alter what would make you happy. Even if it's just by accumulated boredom. Afterlife schemes rarely address this in much detail, and those that try usually ditch the accumulating meaningful experiences part (by reincarnating you without memories, or periodically erasing them in the river Lethe, or when you awake for each new day of glorious battle, or by insisting you will be so transformed as to be *unable* to change to become unhappy). Being able to move up the mountain at least acknowledges the issue exists.

[oppyu]

How in the world does the pejorative social justice warrior factor into where Eric Gre- You know what, never mind.

The concept of an alignment-defined afterlife is weird and troubling, so the Giant just threw something up where everyone's happy and avoiding the fridge logic.

[allenw]

Regardless of Word of Rich, I still have occasional suspicions that real-Eric wasn't really there. Mainly because Roy's Archon didn't know about him.

[Keltest]

Regardless of Word of Rich, I still have occasional suspicions that real-Eric wasn't really there. Mainly because Roy's Archon didn't know about him.

Besides the fact that Roy's Archon has never been shown to be particularly knowledgeable about Roy's personal life, what purpose would having Eric not be Eric serve, other than to create a plot thread unlikely to see resolution?

[factotum]

Plus, Roy's Archon didn't appear to know about Enrique either--does that mean he was a fake?

[Xelbiuj]

Where should he have went?
Innocent, pure, open minded, *insert more generic adjectives that comment on the psychology of a developing mind*

[Keltest]

Where should he have went?
Innocent, pure, open minded, *insert more generic adjectives that comment on the psychology of a developing mind*

Theres an argument to be made for the true neutral afterlife, since infants are, as a rule, not able to tell the difference between right and wrong, and lack the ability to actually act on such distinctions most of the time anyway. Not like cats.

[Rogar Demonblud]

I suppose someplace more Neutral Good-ish is possible. Eric's a toddler, or a little older, so he's partially socialized.

[Kish]

Plus, Roy's Archon didn't appear to know about Enrique either--does that mean he was a fake?
I get off all trains when the conductor says "Regardless of Word of the Author..."

[Keltest]

I get off all trains when the conductor says "Regardless of Word of the Author..."

well yeah, that's a bit of a hint that you may not be operating entirely off of factual information... Not that Rich hasn't tried to deceive us before, but im skeptical that he would outright lie to us when hes under no obligation to indicate he even knew there was a question.

[brian 333]

Without The Giant's explanation I'd have said it is because his mother's afterlife wouldn't be paradise without her lost son.

[Synesthesy]

I don't think that it -always- work like that, becouse it shouldn't be true that a child son of a CE mother must go to CE afterlive.

However, there is one think that we should considerate: the decision of what afterlife you can go is not absolute, but there is an intelligent being making it. So, when the deva has make the interview to Eric's mother, the deva thought that Eric should go to LE afterlife. And he's right.

[Keltest]

I don't think that it -always- work like that, becouse it shouldn't be true that a child son of a CE mother must go to CE afterlive.

However, there is one think that we should considerate: the decision of what afterlife you can go is not absolute, but there is an intelligent being making it. So, when the deva has make the interview to Eric's mother, the deva thought that Eric should go to LE afterlife. And he's right.

See Kish's comment above about ignoring word of Author.

[Kish]

I don't think that it -always- work like that, becouse it shouldn't be true that a child son of a CE mother must go to CE afterlive.

Why not?

("Because it's not fair" is not a meaningful answer; the OotS cosmology has no obligation to be fair.)


LE afterlife
Guessing that's a typo.

[malloyd]

("Because it's not fair" is not a meaningful answer; the OotS cosmology has no obligation to be fair.)

Isn't it? It is a construction of sentient beings, many of whom are obsessed with some kind of standards to the point of being willing to spend eternity judging souls on adherence to them. If the OotS cosmology is not at least close to fair, why did the good and lawful powers ever agree to it in the first place, given that it makes that judgment activity they feel is worth spending eternity doing meaningless any time it is not?

[Keltest]

Isn't it? It is a construction of sentient beings, many of whom are obsessed with some kind of standards to the point of being willing to spend eternity judging souls on adherence to them. If the OotS cosmology is not at least close to fair, why did the good and lawful powers ever agree to it in the first place, given that it makes that judgment activity they feel is worth spending eternity doing meaningless any time it is not?

Because as soon as you bring "fair" into it, you run into such problems as "well, the guy was raised by evil parents in an evil city to do evil things, so is it fair to punish him for being evil?" and "Is it fair to separate children from their familes?" and "Should characters who died without a saving throw get to go back to life?"

Life isn't fair. Neither is death. But can you think of a particularly compelling reason that it wouldn't be "fair" for a baby hobgoblin to go to a lawful evil afterlife where their parents are allowed to burn, pillage, and wage war all day, then come home to feed the kid and play blocks with him?

[Kish]

Isn't it? It is a construction of sentient beings,

Citation needed.

many of whom are obsessed with some kind of standards to the point of being willing to spend eternity judging souls on adherence to them.

Further, for the claim you're making, you need to prove that the OotS cosmology is designed by and for the benefit of primarily Good entities. You can't prove it was designed by anyone not named Rich Burlew, but if your underlying assumption that either the gods or powerful outsiders made the rules from an in-setting perspective was correct, your claim that "therefore it must be fair" would be no better than, "therefore it must favor the evil (gods/outsiders/whichever entities you're arguing for), or why would they have agreed to it?"

If the gods the comic's shown designed the cosmology, then frankly, I see very little reason to expect fairness to even get a look-in; all the OotS gods, whether nominally "good" or "evil," seem primarily concerned with advancing their own power and indulging their egos. But even if it was designed by outsiders, celestials, modrons, slaadi, and fiends, instead of gods, your argument is insupportable without some reason to presume it was actually a matter of "the celestials designed it and the fiends didn't have a say."

[Vinyadan]

Isn't it? It is a construction of sentient beings, many of whom are obsessed with some kind of standards to the point of being willing to spend eternity judging souls on adherence to them. If the OotS cosmology is not at least close to fair, why did the good and lawful powers ever agree to it in the first place, given that it makes that judgment activity they feel is worth spending eternity doing meaningless any time it is not?

Because fruit flies got a raw deal, and they weren't the only ones. (I wonder if and how obscure this quote is).

[Cuthalion]

Plus, Roy's Archon didn't appear to know about Enrique either--does that mean he was a fake?

YUSH

This is my new headcanon.

Xykon disguised himself as Enrique so he could get Roy's mother to tell him things about Roy.

[DaggerPen]

Because fruit flies got a raw deal, and they weren't the only ones. (I wonder if and how obscure this quote is).

I donno, but I like just referenced it in the 961 discussion thread independently, so high five.

[Jaxzan Proditor]

I donno, but I like just referenced it in the 961 discussion thread independently, so high five.

Which was a little weird. I saw that and went "wait, didn't someone just say that?"

[Cuthalion]

I donno, but I like just referenced it in the 961 discussion thread independently, so high five.

I noticed it... What's it from exactly?

[Rogar Demonblud]

The diner scene in Start of Darkness.

[Coidzor]

Citation needed.

Daaaang, that's cold.

I know the designers never had the most coherent of cosmologies in place due to the whole pastiches of pastiches angle, and Rich has had to make the best he could with it, but... Ouch.

[Keltest]

Daaaang, that's cold.

I know the designers never had the most coherent of cosmologies in place due to the whole pastiches of pastiches angle, and Rich has had to make the best he could with it, but... Ouch.

I think hes talking about in-universe, where we don't actually know the gods created the afterlife system.

[Kish]

Let me clarify, lest I be mistaken for having randomly insulted the D&D game developers, that I understood malloyd's assertion "It is a construction of sentient beings" to mean that the OotS cosmology was created in-setting by sentient and fairness-concerned beings...which is what requires a citation. (An exceptionally strong citation given that the assertion is being made to contradict the author's explicit statements about that setting's afterlife, vis-a-vis where the dead child of an evil-aligned mother would go.)

I'm reasonably sure malloyd did not mean to state that either Rich Burlew, Monte Cook, Gary Gygax, or anyone else in our world expressed willingness to spend eternity judging souls for their adherence to the proper alignments!

[veti]

Daaaang, that's cold.

I know the designers never had the most coherent of cosmologies in place due to the whole pastiches of pastiches angle, and Rich has had to make the best he could with it, but... Ouch.

If it makes you any happier... Really, it's just an example of the kind of fridge logic that you'll always run into sooner or later in a "standard" D&D cosmology. Like Rich says: it doesn't make sense, and there's no satisfactory way to make it make sense without seriously compromising the cosmology.

(You can do that, of course, within your own campaign, but that would take us very close to Real World Religion territory so we can't discuss it here. Suffice it to say it would raise a whole set of new questions, which you may or may not be comfortable with working through.)

[Storm_Of_Snow]

I don't think that it -always- work like that, becouse it shouldn't be true that a child son of a CE mother must go to CE afterlive.

Maybe the child has a chance of becoming a powerful denizen of that plane, being unaffected by anything except their parental upbringing.





However, there is one think that we should considerate: the decision of what afterlife you can go is not absolute, but there is an intelligent being making it. So, when the deva has make the interview to Eric's mother, the deva thought that Eric should go to LE afterlife. And he's right.


Lawful Good, not Lawful Evil. And Sarah pretty much states that Eric's been in Celestia since he died, not waiting somewhere until Sarah died so they could be together.

#496 - panel 4.
:roy: He's - he's here???
:sarah: Yes, Has been for 18 years, apparently.

I assume the archons of Celestia looked after him until Sarah died.

And while I like the Giant's theory, another possible alternative is that Eric's upbringing was just enough to move him into LG by rights, and maybe at some point he'll be ready to go further up the mountain on his own.

[Chronos]

How about this? A dead infant gets a choice. It's a very rudimentary choice, of course, based on limited information... but then again, from an eternal point of view, any choice made by mortals is very rudimentary. Most infants (including Eric) probably choose something like "I want to be with Mama", and so get sent to the same afterlife that Mama would be sent to. But an infant with a particularly cruel or unloving mother might choose differently-- Maybe choosing to be with someone else in their life who was loving, or maybe a more generic "I want to be somewhere nice", or whatever. Or, of course, maybe the infant chooses "I want to go where I can be the strong one", or chooses to be with Mama even though she's mean, or whatever.

And before you object that an infant can't articulate a choice like that, remember, this is also a world where a low-level spell can enable a frog or turtle to articulate a thought about as complex as that. Even an infant has more intellectual capacity than that.

[hamishspence]

And before you object that an infant can't articulate a choice like that, remember, this is also a world where a low-level spell can enable a frog or turtle to articulate a thought about as complex as that. Even an infant has more intellectual capacity than that.

This is also a world where turtles carry suitcases. :smallbiggrin:

http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0551.html

[Psyren]

Regarding the "child of CE mother goes to her afterlife" thing - remember that the E afterlives are intended to be punitive in nature. While a good afterlife might reward you by letting you reunite with the child you lost and work through your guilt that way, an evil one might actually keep the child out just to make you feel even worse. What could be more painful than knowing you will never see your child again, for eternity? Probably that would be worse than any number of thumbscrews or pokers they could come up with.

So, N or G afterlife - the kid is there with you, thus their destination is N or G. E afterlife, the kid is kept out to torture you more - thus their destination is still N or G. Either way, no babies in the Fire Below.

[Keltest]

Regarding the "child of CE mother goes to her afterlife" thing - remember that the E afterlives are intended to be punitive in nature. While a good afterlife might reward you by letting you reunite with the child you lost and work through your guilt that way, an evil one might actually keep the child out just to make you feel even worse. What could be more painful than knowing you will never see your child again, for eternity? Probably that would be worse than any number of thumbscrews or pokers they could come up with.

So, N or G afterlife - the kid is there with you, thus their destination is N or G. E afterlife, the kid is kept out to torture you more - thus their destination is still N or G. Either way, no babies in the Fire Below.

in most D&D cosmologies that im familiar with, that's not the case. Certainly they aren't nice for most people in any sense of the word, but that's more a result of being trapped in a plane filled almost exclusively with evil manipulative people who have no problems with stepping on the new guy to get ahead, rather than a deliberate attempt to punish you.

[Grey_Wolf_c]

remember that the E afterlives are intended to be punitive in nature.

No, they are not. They are punitive only to those who don't belong there. Belkar would much rather spend an eternity fighting for supremacy in the CE than bored out of his mind in one of the peaceful G afterlives. That was Rich's point: the afterlives are supposed to be all equal - there aren't "good ones" and "bad ones" - only Good ones and Evil ones. Each one is appropriate for one of the alignment classifications, and whichever one you get is the one where you fit best and were you will spend a satisfying time until you are ready to move on, in whatever form that takes. And yes, that means that if you poke at the concept enough, you'll find plenty of holes - which was also Rich's point.

Grey Wolf

[hamishspence]

No, they are not. They are punitive only to those who don't belong there.

Getting "snipped" every morning might seem pretty punitive:

http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0635.html

[Kish]

I don't see the ambiguity. "Babies go wherever their mother is/will go"; that's Word of the Author. All the protests and countertheories strike me as a lot like, "But I don't want fire to cause excruciating pain and death. Let's say that it doesn't."

[Keltest]

Getting "snipped" every morning might seem pretty punitive:

http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0635.html

Its also the result of a bunch of superpowerful evil beings having nothing better to do with their time. And also, as mentioned, a ton of holes and contradictions in the D&D cosmology. Im pretty sure they have several conflicting fates for evil dead people, for example.

[Grey_Wolf_c]

Getting "snipped" every morning might seem pretty punitive

It might, but so is having to share a house with your mom when you are trying to have a one-night stand. We don't know what the snipped singers get out of the arrangement - it might be a way to ingratiate themselves to a higher power, in order to gain rank, or part of a deal (LE only), etc. We know the purpose of the afterlife is to help the dead get rid of their "earthly attachments" so to speak. The LG does it in a rather relaxed way, but it is not the only way. That E afterlife seems to prefer the "fast tug on the band-aid" approach to that particular attachment.

Grey Wolf

[Psyren]

Getting "snipped" every morning might seem pretty punitive:

http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0635.html

Thank you for saving me the trouble of quoting that.


No, they are not. They are punitive only to those who don't belong there.

In addition to hamish's quote - I suppose Xykon's "anything to avoid the Big Fire Below" (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0652.html) was a desire to avoid heatstroke? :smallconfused:

Yeah, not buying it for a second.


It might, but so is having to share a house with your mom when you are trying to have a one-night stand.

Uh, no, that's hardly "punitive." Inconvenient, maybe, but given Sara's only proclivities she may not even have noticed when he had "company" over.


I don't see the ambiguity. "Babies go wherever their mother is/will go"; that's Word of the Author. All the protests and countertheories strike me as a lot like, "But I don't want fire to cause excruciating pain and death. Let's say that it doesn't."

I have no trouble with the mother going there if she is CE. But the baby getting punished before s/he has an alignment, don't you think that's a bit harsh? I doubt Rich would have intended that result given his view of, say, black dragon eggs.

[Keltest]

In addition to hamish's quote - I suppose Xykon's "anything to avoid the Big Fire Below" (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0652.html) was a desire to avoid heatstroke? :smallconfused:

Yeah, not buying it for a second.

Xykon has been known to regularly spout crap for any or no reason. Youll notice he also listed vampirism there, when it is worse than death for the soul. Furthermore, Roy decidedly wanted to avoid death even when its totally wonderful for him. That stands as pretty clear evidence that death does not need to be punitive to be undesirable.


Uh, no, that's hardly "punitive." Inconvenient, maybe, but given Sara's only proclivities she may not even have noticed when he had "company" over. it doesn't matter what Sara is doing, if Roy wants to have a one night stand, he has to do it in his mom's house. Oftentimes its bad enough just living with your mother at his age, let alone having a girlfriend over for the night when shes in the house. If anything, her proclivities may make things worse for him.[/QUOTE]

[Psyren]

Xykon has been known to regularly spout crap for any or no reason. Youll notice he also listed vampirism there, when it is worse than death for the soul.

For a GOOD soul, sure. The evil one may not be in control, but they are still around and doing evil, and more importantly not getting snipped every morning.



Furthermore, Roy decidedly wanted to avoid death even when its totally wonderful for him. That stands as pretty clear evidence that death does not need to be punitive to be undesirable.

I never said it needed to be punitive to be undesirable - but if it IS punitive, that is indeed undesirable.


it doesn't matter what Sara is doing, if Roy wants to have a one night stand, he has to do it in his mom's house. Oftentimes its bad enough just living with your mother at his age, let alone having a girlfriend over for the night when shes in the house. If anything, her proclivities may make things worse for him.

That was a temporary arrangement. We've all had to put up with some temporary arrangements that were annoying for a little while. Such as, say, climbing a giant mountain to get to your reward.

[Keltest]

For a GOOD soul, sure. The evil one may not be in control, but they are still around and doing evil, and more importantly not getting snipped every morning.



I never said it needed to be punitive to be undesirable - but if it IS punitive, that is indeed undesirable.



That was a temporary arrangement. We've all had to put up with some temporary arrangements that were annoying for a little while. Such as, say, climbing a giant mountain to get to your reward.

Ok, let me ask you this. Have you seen any indication from characters who know what theyre talking about (so priests and/or people who have died and/or people involved in the process of death) that evil afterlives are punitive? And before you mention the snips, we have no idea of what the circumstances of that are. The fact that theyre chanting in not latin rather than, say, writhing around in agony suggests that theyre getting something out of the deal, or at least not being held at swordpoint.

edit: and a followup question: why would an evil god make their afterlife punitive? They want to encourage people to be evil, not scare them away by saying "be evil and you'll get tortured forever!"

[Vinyadan]

Xykon has been known to regularly spout crap for any or no reason. Youll notice he also listed vampirism there, when it is worse than death for the soul.

In the sourcebooks there is a reference to such things happening - a powerful mage being turned into a vampire spawn after paying mercenaries to kill his sire after a short time, this becoming a free-willed vampire. Xykon may have known about something similar happening before; he must have known about the chance of it happening. Given the little reason vampires have to explain how vampirism really works, I think he was talking about the attitude of the guy who makes such a choice, without having any idea of how it really works. It may also be true that he has no idea of how hell or similar places work, but that's a separate problem.


Regarding the "child of CE mother goes to her afterlife" thing - remember that the E afterlives are intended to be punitive in nature. While a good afterlife might reward you by letting you reunite with the child you lost and work through your guilt that way, an evil one might actually keep the child out just to make you feel even worse. What could be more painful than knowing you will never see your child again, for eternity? Probably that would be worse than any number of thumbscrews or pokers they could come up with.

So, N or G afterlife - the kid is there with you, thus their destination is N or G. E afterlife, the kid is kept out to torture you more - thus their destination is still N or G. Either way, no babies in the Fire Below.

I think you are underestimating how evil some of these people may be - we are literally talking about the whole group of evil people on earth -; I'm afraid there is a very high chance of some of these people being happy about their infant children being tortured with them.

Anyway, searching for a working eschatology based on merit in D&D is quite useless. The simple presence of soul binding and some interpretations of the relationship between soul and undead make it impossible, and the way alignments work make it unthinkable, unless evil is accepted as a status causing suffering in and of itself. Which makes you wonder, anyway, why Arcadia should be needed.

[Kish]

I have no trouble with the mother going there if she is CE. But the baby getting punished before s/he has an alignment, don't you think that's a bit harsh? I doubt Rich would have intended that result given his view of, say, black dragon eggs.
Yes it's harsh, but that doesn't matter. Your unstated premise here is that the cosmology is just. I think it's far more likely that the cosmology is uncaringly brutal (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0040.html). If you drop your infant into a fire s/he will die horribly despite any amount of protests about how innocent s/he was. If you're a newly hatched black dragon who, divination magic will show, was going to grow up to become a paladin, and some crazy elf slaughters you and your Chaotic Evil mother to punish your cousin-fourteen-times-removed, you go to the Chaotic Evil afterlife.

[Psyren]

Ok, let me ask you this. Have you seen any indication from characters who know what theyre talking about (so priests and/or people who have died and/or people involved in the process of death) that evil afterlives are punitive? And before you mention the snips, we have no idea of what the circumstances of that are. The fact that theyre chanting in not latin rather than, say, writhing around in agony suggests that theyre getting something out of the deal, or at least not being held at swordpoint.

In addition to IFCC's direct statement (who are about as authoritative on the lower planes as you're likely to get, unless Asmodeus is in the strip or something), we also have Lee's inbox, (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0918.html) which is indicative of the evil afterlife's dehumanizing nature. Compare to Celestia's velvet roped line, golden gate with cherubim and a personalized archon for every petitioner.



edit: and a followup question: why would an evil god make their afterlife punitive? They want to encourage people to be evil, not scare them away by saying "be evil and you'll get tortured forever!"

The easiest answer is because they don't view it as punishment. They feel that long periods of soul-crushing torture are the best way to erase your weakness Take a god like Bane, or Talos - they don't want another squishy mortal, because if you were capable of succeeding in that form you wouldn't be dead. They want either more fiends, or failing that, just to eat your soul and make magic items for your successors with it.

Only a handful of souls are capable of retaining their memories/humanity down there, and those are typically the ones so ruthless and vile they might as well be fiends anyway. This is where the Splices would fall.

Also, some are just plain crazy, like Shar or Rovagug.


Yes it's harsh, but that doesn't matter. Your unstated premise here is that the cosmology is just. I think it's far more likely that the cosmology is uncaringly brutal (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0040.html). If you drop your infant into a fire s/he will die horribly despite any amount of protests about how innocent s/he was. If you're a newly hatched black dragon who, divination magic will show, was going to grow up to become a paladin, and some crazy elf slaughters you and your Chaotic Evil mother to punish your cousin-fourteen-times-removed, you go to the Chaotic Evil afterlife.

If it were truly as uncaring as you say, it seems to me that they would have stuck with the RAW regarding Eugene's (and Roy's) Blood Oath of Vengeance, rather than waiving it and letting him proceed to the afterlife. It also explicitly rewards him, not for being Lawful Good, but for trying to be Lawful Good.

Also, your cite is pre-Cerebus, and Thor's attitude is explicitly not indicative (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0201.html) of the cosmology itself.

[Keltest]

In addition to IFCC's direct statement (who are about as authoritative on the lower planes as you're likely to get, unless Asmodeus is in the strip or something), we also have Lee's inbox, (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0918.html) which is indicative of the evil afterlife's dehumanizing nature. Compare to Celestia's velvet roped line, golden gate with cherubim and a personalized archon for every petitioner.



The easiest answer is because they don't view it as punishment. They feel that long periods of soul-crushing torture are the best way to erase your weakness Take a god like Bane, or Talos - they don't want another squishy mortal, because if you were capable of succeeding in that form you wouldn't be dead. They want either more fiends, or failing that, just to eat your soul and make magic items for your successors with it.

Only a handful of souls are capable of retaining their memories/humanity down there, and those are typically the ones so ruthless and vile they might as well be fiends anyway. This is where the Splices would fall.

Also, some are just plain crazy, like Shar or Rovagug.



If it were truly as uncaring as you say, it seems to me that they would have stuck with the RAW regarding Eugene's (and Roy's) Blood Oath of Vengeance, rather than waiving it and letting him proceed to the afterlife. It also explicitly rewards him, not for being Lawful Good, but for trying to be Lawful Good.

Also, your cite is pre-Cerebus, and Thor's attitude is explicitly not indicative (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0201.html) of the cosmology itself.

First off, let me address all of this by saying that youre reading way too much into one off jokes. Historically Rich has not developed anything beyond what is necessary to move the plot forward.

now then, let me ask you something. If the evil gods and fiends don't view what theyre doing as a punishment, how does that translate to a punitive afterlife? If its punitive, they have to have been sent there to be, well, punished for their deeds. If the fiends aren't doing something to punish them, its an ironic twist of fate at worst. And you still didn't really answer the question, other than to further highlight the dislogic I was pointing out: If the gods are deliberately making things unpleasant in the evil afterlives, why would anyone follow them when theyre mortal? For power? Ok, except that we haven't seen the evil gods give out anything the good gods cant/wont. Out of fear? Well, they cant really affect you if you aren't evil, so that option is out. Out of a desire to do evil things to people? Well if the afterlife is punitive, that wont come close to paying off in the long run. So you basically end up with a system that repels anyone smart enough to think about it for a bit.

[Kish]

If it were truly as uncaring as you say, it seems to me that they would have stuck with the RAW regarding Eugene's (and Roy's) Blood Oath of Vengeance, rather than waiving it and letting him proceed to the afterlife. It also explicitly rewards him, not for being Lawful Good, but for trying to be Lawful Good.

Broad pronoun reference. You're equating a deva who represents the Forces of Pure Law and Good with the architects of the entire nine-alignments cosmology. Do you think Roy would have been let into the afterlife if he was Lawful Neutral? Lawful Evil? I sure don't. This amounts to, "Lawful Good is Lawful Good. Therefore, the powers which created the system in which people of all nine alignments coexist with approximately equal amounts of power, are also Lawful Good."

Now I ask you...if beings with the same sense of justice as Roy's bureaucratic deva make all the rules...why is Xykon allowed? Why does "this doesn't happen, since it would be unjust" apply to where one child goes in the afterlife, and not to whether another child gets slaughtered in front of his father to the sound of Xykon's laughter, or two of the greatest heroes their world has known get brutally smashed and stuck in a black gem in the pocket of a brutal skeletal butcher? Do Lee, Nero, and Cedrik look like they really care about fairness? If there's some kind of Dragonlance-style High God here, I need evidence. (Really strong evidence, to override Word of the Author on the subject; Rich could have said "if you die as a child you go to your mother's afterlife if she's Neutral or Good" rather than "if you die as a child you go to your mother's afterlife" if he meant the former rather than the latter.)


Also, your cite is pre-Cerebus, and Thor's attitude is explicitly not indicative (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0201.html) of the cosmology itself.
I confess I am completely at a loss for how a portrayal of a nominally-good god blindfolded and throwing around lightning bolts at random while he yells "Whee!" is an argument against a lack of cosmic justice.

[Keltest]

I confess I am completely at a loss for how a portrayal of a nominally-good god blindfolded and throwing around lightning bolts at random while he yells "Whee!" is an argument against a lack of cosmic justice.

There may be some straw grasping here, but I believe he is trying to say that Thor is simply incompetent at his job, and that not every member of the cosmology is as drunk as he is. Now, the straw grasping part comes in because Thor is one of the most powerful gods in his pantheon, and presumably a cosmology that cared that much about fairness would not put someone as out of control as Thor in the driver's seat. And Thor of all people had to tell Odin not to touch Argent because he doesn't know where its been. Confidence inspiring, that is not.

[Psyren]

Broad pronoun reference. You're equating a deva who represents the Forces of Pure Law and Good with the architects of the entire nine-alignments cosmology. Do you think Roy would have been let into the afterlife if he was Lawful Neutral? Lawful Evil? I sure don't. This amounts to, "Lawful Good is Lawful Good. Therefore, the powers which created the system in which people of all nine alignments coexist with approximately equal amounts of power, are also Lawful Good."

She explicitly states that, looking at accomplishments alone, he could be easily TN. It is only when they factor in intent and attitude that he makes it in. Justice requires mitigating circumstances and intent, therefore what happened to Roy was in fact justice.

They also didn't penalize him for effectiveness where the oath was concerned., which is again factoring his intent - justice again.



Now I ask you...if beings with the same sense of justice as Roy's bureaucratic deva make all the rules...why is Xykon allowed?

You mean "why does evil exist?" That's a pretty loaded question, and one I'm not sure we can discuss here. All I will say is that your statement is incomplete - instead, it should be "beings with the same justice as Roy's bureaucratic deva make all the rules in the afterlife." You are the one assuming their jurisdiction extends to the mortal realm - however, it seems that both sides are restricted with how much they can interfere on the Prime Material, and that applies just as much to the gods as we saw with Darkon's weather stunt.



I confess I am completely at a loss for how a portrayal of a nominally-good god blindfolded and throwing around lightning bolts at random while he yells "Whee!" is an argument against a lack of cosmic justice.

The issue is that you are using Thor's attitude to evidence a lack of cosmic justice, whereas I see the two as completely unrelated. It's like saying "Lions eat meat, therefore roller skates exist."

Rather, OotS - as in D&D - has cosmic forces that exist separately from the gods. The gods are particularly powerful representatives of such forces, but they neither embody nor define them.

[Vinyadan]

The issue is that you are using Thor's attitude to evidence a lack of cosmic justice, whereas I see the two as completely unrelated. It's like saying "Lions eat meat, therefore roller skates exist."


How am I supposed to outrun a lion in urban environment otherwise? Especially on rush our.

[Kish]

You are the one assuming their jurisdiction extends to the mortal realm

Rather, I am rejecting your assumption that these speculative entities who contradict and override the author exist.


Rather, OotS - as in D&D - has cosmic forces that exist separately from the gods. The gods are particularly powerful representatives of such forces, but they neither embody nor define them.
Evidence?

(Evidence that doesn't hinge on the unsupportable assumption that a type of creatures who can clearly be both tricked and physically overpowered by Eugene and, oh yeah, refer to themselves with the term "deva," a specific kind of celestial, are above the gods and make the rules for all afterlives, not just for the single afterlife that matches their alignment?)

[Psyren]

Rather, I am rejecting your assumption that these speculative entities who contradict and override the author exist.

You are framing the question as "Psyren thinks Rich is wrong about his own setting" but I would instead frame it as "Psyren doesn't think Rich was considering the possibility of chucking babies into Hell when he wrote that." Which is a possibility; he was responding specifically to a question about Eric Greenhilt in the story, not necessarily writing an ironclad rule for all children in the setting regardless of race.


Evidence?

Paladins and Druids exist, and have alignment restrictions despite not getting their powers from a deity specifically?

[Kish]

You are framing the question as "Psyren thinks Rich is wrong about his own setting" but I would instead frame it as "Psyren doesn't think Rich was considering the possibility of chucking babies into Hell when he wrote that." Which is a possibility; he was responding specifically to a question about Eric Greenhilt in the story, not necessarily writing an ironclad rule for all children in the setting regardless of race.

Again, he was not forced by any means not to write, "Eric Greenhilt was" instead of "children are," if he did not mean "children are." He even allowed for the hypothetical child predeceasing her/his mother.


Paladins and Druids exist, and have alignment restrictions despite not getting their powers from a deity specifically?
Sorry, let me try with more words.

What evidence is that that some power above the gods enforces justice? It's not enough for the power above the gods to exist. You also need to prove that that power is Lawful Good itself, like the High God from Krynn, the kind of overgod who would respond to "That's not fair!" with "Then I better fix it," not like Ao from Faerun, the kind of overgod who would and did respond to the Lord of Murder tricking and murdering another god and the Lord of Intrigue hiding the murder from the rest of the gods with, "Why are you bothering me? Of course they did. It's their portfolios."

[veti]

Xykon may have known about something similar happening before; he must have known about the chance of it happening. Given the little reason vampires have to explain how vampirism really works, I think he was talking about the attitude of the guy who makes such a choice, without having any idea of how it really works. It may also be true that he has no idea of how hell or similar places work, but that's a separate problem.

I am reasonably sure that Xykon has fewer ranks in "knowledge: religion" than anyone here who's read "Manual of the Planes". He's never shown, or had reason to take, any particular interest in the subject.

But we have seen three people who do know a thing or two about the Evil afterlife at first-hand: Ganeron, Haera and Jephton (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0633.html). They don't look particularly elated about getting a break from their afterlives, and they don't seem to be particularly upset (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0641.html) about going back (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0653.html) to it either.

Edit: there's also Jirix (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0704.html), of course.

[Psyren]

But we have seen three people who do know a thing or two about the Evil afterlife at first-hand: Ganeron, Haera and Jephton (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0633.html). They don't look particularly elated about getting a break from their afterlives, and they don't seem to be particularly upset (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0641.html) about going back (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0653.html) to it either.

Which is why they have to send someone to collect her, (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0641.html) right? Because she's so eager to go back?


Edit: there's also Jirix (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0704.html), of course.

Woohoo, neverending and meaningless war in the name of the guy who got you killed in the first place. While the good guys get to simply rest and have fun with their families. I'm sure that won't get old at all! :smalltongue:

I wonder - what happens to the goblins who don't want to wage war in the Dark One's name forever? Is Right-Eye somewhere in that horde, Goblin Soldier #37,769B? Are his wife and son there?


Again, he was not forced by any means not to write, "Eric Greenhilt was" instead of "children are," if he did not mean "children are." He even allowed for the hypothetical child predeceasing her/his mother.

Being able to write something and not writing it can have a number of explanations, not just the single one you have come up with. As it is, unless he says specifically "yes, Hell has a dumpster/inbox/daycare where they toss all baby petitioners" I don't think it's unreasonable to assume he was specifically talking about the babies of non-evil parents.



Sorry, let me try with more words.

What evidence is that that some power above the gods enforces justice? It's not enough for the power above the gods to exist. You also need to prove that that power is Lawful Good itself, like the High God from Krynn, the kind of overgod who would respond to "That's not fair!" with "Then I better fix it," not like Ao from Faerun, the kind of overgod who would and did respond to the Lord of Murder tricking and murdering another god and the Lord of Intrigue hiding the murder from the rest of the gods with, "Why are you bothering me? Of course they did. It's their portfolios."

You mean The Book? (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0490.html)

Well for starters, I'm not sure how you could call Ao "unjust" in that example. If a deity exists to champion/monitor a thing, and they do that thing, they're pretty much doing their job. But if, say, Eldath grabbed a battleaxe and went on a killing spree, you can probably imagine Ao would either reclassify her or revoke her status entirely.

As for your actual question - the fact that you can be impious at all/just want to be left alone by the gods, and still get all the same rewards as the folks who have been devoutly religious their entire lives, tells me that the gods are not the arbiters in this particular cosmology.

[Keltest]

Well for starters, I'm not sure how you could call Ao "unjust" in that example. If a deity exists to champion/monitor a thing, and they do that thing, they're pretty much doing their job. But if, say, Eldath grabbed a battleaxe and went on a killing spree, you can probably imagine Ao would either reclassify her or revoke her status entirely.

given the number of times gods have more or less literally done that and gotten away with it, im going to say that no, he wouldn't.

[veti]

Which is why they have to send someone to collect her, (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0641.html) right? Because she's so eager to go back?

I never said she was "eager to go back". But she's also, quite clearly, not "eager" to remain in V's splice either, which suggests that she's not particularly afraid of going back.


Woohoo, neverending and meaningless war in the name of the guy who got you killed in the first place. While the good guys get to simply rest and have fun with their families. I'm sure that won't get old at all! :smalltongue:

I wonder - what happens to the goblins who don't want to wage war in the Dark One's name forever? Is Right-Eye somewhere in that horde, Goblin Soldier #37,769B? Are his wife and son there?

You might as well ask about those dwarves who don't like beer. There must be some.

We don't know about the feelings of anyone else in that army. For all we know, they're all enthusiastic volunteers. Or they might be pressed conscripts - we've been told nothing about them. I'm talking about the evidence of what we have been told, or shown.


As for your actual question - the fact that you can be impious at all/just want to be left alone by the gods, and still get all the same rewards as the folks who have been devoutly religious their entire lives, tells me that the gods are not the arbiters in this particular cosmology.

Whoa, vast non-sequitur there. You're assuming that all the gods, good, evil, lawful and chaotic alike, are so vain that "worship" is the one thing they care about enough to make it the overriding priority in determining an afterlife.

What if some of them actually believe in 'justice'? Or even, in simply not having their respective boats rocked, by putting people in places where they won't fit in?

[Psyren]

given the number of times gods have more or less literally done that and gotten away with it, im going to say that no, he wouldn't.

And those gods had "peace" and "pacifism" in their portfolio when they did, I take it?

(Heh, alliteration.)


I never said she was "eager to go back". But she's also, quite clearly, not "eager" to remain in V's splice either, which suggests that she's not particularly afraid of going back.

But she's not heading back at all - she is running amok and has to be collected. Most likely she is looking for a new host; either way, she is not in any kind of hurry to go back.

Also, how does not remaining in V's splice indicate lack of fear of going back? It's pretty clear that if she had stuck around there, they would have taken her back eventually - the splice was temporary by design.


You might as well ask about those dwarves who don't like beer. There must be some.

And Thor... drowns you in it for eternity? Hooks you up to an IV? Forces it down their throats? How is this relevant?


We don't know about the feelings of anyone else in that army. For all we know, they're all enthusiastic volunteers. Or they might be pressed conscripts - we've been told nothing about them. I'm talking about the evidence of what we have been told, or shown.

You didn't say anything about them at all. You simply said "There's also Jirix" and attached a link.



Whoa, vast non-sequitur there. You're assuming that all the gods, good, evil, lawful and chaotic alike, are so vain that "worship" is the one thing they care about enough to make it the overriding priority in determining an afterlife.

I'm pretty sure I said the exact opposite of that, actually.

[Vinyadan]

Whoa, vast non-sequitur there. You're assuming that all the gods, good, evil, lawful and chaotic alike, are so vain that "worship" is the one thing they care about enough to make it the overriding priority in determining an afterlife.


Just for clarity, the Deva who handed the verdict to Roy said that his lack of piety didn't really matter.

[Kish]

Being able to write something and not writing it can have a number of explanations, not just the single one you have come up with. As it is, unless he says specifically "yes, Hell has a dumpster/inbox/daycare where they toss all baby petitioners" I don't think it's unreasonable to assume he was specifically talking about the babies of non-evil parents.

You don't really need to tell me that you see a reason not to believe he meant everything he said. I got that a long time ago. :smalltongue:


You mean The Book? (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0490.html)

You're still generalizing the Lawful Good afterlife to the entire cosmology. Yes, the deva and the rules she follow both manifestly care about fairness. Do you wish to explicitly, not just implicitly, commit yourself to the position that so does whatever her counterpart at the Nine Hells is?


Well for starters, I'm not sure how you could call Ao "unjust" in that example.

A goddess who didn't do anything wrong getting obliterated, and Ao's sole response is to chastise the people who think this is in some way a bad thing (notably and prominently including the God of Justice, who continued to talk about how the Lord of Murder would pay for that crime after Ao had left)....As someone once said to me, don't you think that's a bit harsh?


If a deity exists to champion/monitor a thing, and they do that thing, they're pretty much doing their job. But if, say, Eldath grabbed a battleaxe and went on a killing spree, you can probably imagine Ao would either reclassify her or revoke her status entirely.

Right, see? Fairness doesn't matter. What matters is only that the people who are supposed to be mass murderers do the mass murdering. The problem with innocent people being axe-murdered isn't INNOCENT PEOPLE and BLOOD and PAIN and DEATH--it's that the axe-murdering is being done by the Goddess of Peace, and not Talos.

And similarly, by that moral framework, the problem with infant souls going to the Abyss isn't INFANT SOULS and the ABYSS--it's that this is something the demons would want and the devas would not want. Which is only a reason for it not to happen if the devas make the rules and the demons don't get a say.


As for your actual question - the fact that you can be impious at all/just want to be left alone by the gods, and still get all the same rewards as the folks who have been devoutly religious their entire lives, tells me that the gods are not the arbiters in this particular cosmology.
That does not answer my actual question. That answers the almost completely unrelated question, "What makes you think the gods aren't ultimate cosmological arbiters?" Like veti, I tend to think it answers it badly (see my response to Vinyadan), but that fades into insignificance next to the fact that my actual question was, "What evidence do you have that some power above the gods enforces justice?" (And not "enforces that Lawful Good people care about justice.")

Just for clarity, the Deva who handed the verdict to Roy said that his lack of piety didn't really matter.
Yes, but to take that as an indication that the gods have no say in the afterlife presupposes that the gods would want it to. That (e.g.) Odin would not say, "Roy is a good man who died valiantly fighting evil, let him be rewarded, no I don't really care that he spent his life directing a kind of tepid worship in the direction of my pantheon rather than wearing a W.W.O.D. bracelet."

[Vinyadan]

Yes, but to take that as an indication that the gods have no say in the afterlife presupposes that the gods would want it to. That (e.g.) Odin would not say, "Roy is a good man who died valiantly fighting evil, let him be rewarded, no I don't really care that he spent his life directing a kind of tepid worship in the direction of my pantheon rather than wearing a W.W.O.D. bracelet."

Well, I didn't say that; I simply quoted a bit of a comic which seemed useful or pertaining to the debate here.

Besides, the gods have a say in the afterlife: if they didn't in the "who gets in" matter, they still doubtlessly do, at least in one case, in the "who gets out": Hel has the power to avoid the dishonoured dwarfs in her realm from being resurrected, even though she doesn't use it because of the Domain Agreement.

[Keltest]

Well, I didn't say that; I simply quoted a bit of a comic which seemed useful or pertaining to the debate here.

Besides, the gods have a say in the afterlife: if they didn't in the "who gets in" matter, they still doubtlessly do, at least in one case, in the "who gets out": Hel has the power to avoid the dishonoured dwarfs in her realm from being resurrected, even though she doesn't use it because of the Domain Agreement.

the gods, being gods, presumably could have a great deal of power over planar travel were they to attempt it. Presumably they don't because the last time there was any sort of serious deific conflict, a pantheon was erased from existence.

[Kish]

Well, I didn't say that; I simply quoted a bit of a comic which seemed useful or pertaining to the debate here.

Besides, the gods have a say in the afterlife: if they didn't in the "who gets in" matter, they still doubtlessly do, at least in one case, in the "who gets out": Hel has the power to avoid the dishonoured dwarfs in her realm from being resurrected, even though she doesn't use it because of the Domain Agreement.
Oh, thanks for reminding me; I did want to point out to Psyren that apparently who goes to what afterlife is a matter for debate between Thor and Hel, not standing back and watching the Cosmic Principle of Fairness dictate to both of them what they will accept.

If an infection carries a good-aligned dwarf, instead of to where she would want to go, to a place where she will have to struggle under the weight of Hel's massive cup of blood...isn't that a bit harsh?

[Psyren]

You don't really need to tell me that you see a reason not to believe he meant everything he said. I got that a long time ago. :smalltongue:

Care to show me where he clearly said "yes, I'm aware this means babies of evil people get chucked into Hell, and this is an intended result?"


You're still generalizing the Lawful Good afterlife to the entire cosmology. Yes, the deva and the rules she follow both manifestly care about fairness. Do you wish to explicitly, not just implicitly, commit yourself to the position that so does whatever her counterpart at the Nine Hells is?

You mean, "do I think all the outer planes have to play by a common set of rules?" Rules like "we can only act directly on the mortal plane when we're making a deal?" (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0656.html) Yes, I do.


Oh, thanks for reminding me; I did want to point out to Psyren that apparently who goes to what afterlife is a matter for debate between Thor and Hel, not standing back and watching the Cosmic Principle of Fairness dictate to both of them what they will accept.

If an infection carries a good-aligned dwarf, instead of to where she would want to go, to a place where she will have to struggle under the weight of Hel's massive cup of blood...isn't that a bit harsh?

Doesn't that particular arrangement only apply to dwarven souls, as noted by that very conversation? So it has no bearing on Eric Greenhilt's situation.

Plus, that paper-thin loophole with the alcohol and the conifers seems tailor-made to address even that minor imbalance.

[Keltest]

Doesn't that particular arrangement only apply to dwarven souls, as noted by that very conversation? So it has no bearing on Eric Greenhilt's situation.

Plus, that paper-thin loophole with the alcohol and the conifers seems tailor-made to address even that minor imbalance.

It applies to anyone who believes they should go to Hel's domain for a dishonorable death. Haley would never go even if she dies quietly in the night from a sudden heart attack, because she doesn't believe she was dishonored, and Durkon got to die in battle, so even though he ended up unleashing a spawn of evil on the world through his actions, he would still get to go to the Lawful Good afterlife when the vampire is killed. If the loophole seems contrived, its because the whole "go to Hel for your dishonor" scenario is itself contrived, and it seems like it was written purely to give Dwarves a cultural reason for their honor.

[Kish]

Care to show me where he clearly said "yes, I'm aware this means babies of evil people get chucked into Hell, and this is an intended result?"

No, I don't care to show you where he pointlessly repeated himself. What he said was clear enough; he could hardly have anticipated you deciding he only meant part of it.


You mean, "do I think all the outer planes have to play by a common set of rules?"

I mean what I said. But this is seeming increasingly pointless. I can ask for evidence that fairness is a built-in part of the cosmology all day, and you can respond with variants on, "Look at this aspect of the Lawful Good afterlife" all day. If and when we see Director Lee or some equivalent say, "Of course the Nine Hells only accepts souls who have actually done horrible things, and throws back the souls of infants who predeceased their Lawful Evil mothers, as well as dwarves who died of disease rather than in battle," I'll concede that you're right; I trust the same applies in reverse if and when we see Director Lee or some equivalent say, "Yes, the Nine Hells sometimes gets infant souls, ha ha; fairness? What a nauseatingly Good concept!"


Doesn't that particular arrangement only apply to dwarven souls, as noted by that very conversation?

This seems like willful dodging.

You're arguing for a principle: That some Cosmic Principle of Fairness which will not permit infant souls to go to lower planes decides where souls go in the afterlife. One of the implications of that principle is that the sadistic Northern death goddess and the drunkenly selfish Northern storm god should really not have anything to say about where souls go. And yet we see them arguing over it, with the very clear implication that who wins the argument will determine where the soul being argued over goes, multiple times. We don't see them standing back and Hel grumbling, "She should have been mine" as the Cosmic Principle of Fairness lifts the soul into an Upper Plane. We don't see some indication that Durkon is in fact entirely wrongheaded and Hel instead gets the souls of evil dwarves, with good dwarves who died of a disease that laid them too low to spend their last energies flipping out on a random tree still going to the upper planes; how is it fair that the flu can damn a good person, if that person is a dwarf?

How does that work with the existence of your Cosmic Principle of Fairness? Is it a Cosmic Principle of Fairness for Nondwarves, with dwarves being left to the tender mercies of the gods? (If it is, how is that fair?)

[Psyren]

How is it fair that the flu can damn a good person, if that person is a dwarf?

You're right - it's not. But that dwarf still at least has a chance. A child, a baby, would not even understand that he has to hurry and get pickled, or take a mortal splinter, in order to be saved. I simply don't see that as planned.

[Drathon'Tal]

Children of a certain age are innocent and mostly good. I see no reason for Eric to not have a Lawful Good afterlife. he is happy there.

Even if it was his brother Roy who killed him, accidentally.:smalleek: for references to this see. comics 496 for how roy felt about his brother and had guilt about his death. and was seriously relieved that his brother was happy :smallsmile: and didnt blame Roy for what happened when he had that magical accident that killed him:
told about in comic 944 that um.. someone ... else? did.
( Yea thats the ticket!)

And besides the family background and surname of Greenhilt. I bet you dollars to donuts, that Erics death had quite a bit to do with Roy's decision to become a fighter, and not have any more to do with magic. despite his fathers scorn and derision.

[Jaxzan Proditor]

Even if it was his brother Roy who killed him, accidentally.:smalleek: for references to this see. comics 496 for how roy felt about his brother and had guilt about his death. and was seriously relieved that his brother was happy :smallsmile: and didnt blame Roy for what happened when he had that magical accident that killed him:
told about in comic 944 that um.. someone ... else? did.
( Yea thats the ticket!)

Umm, I'm not saying what supports this idea. "I was just a kid. It wasn't my job to watch the grown up". Roy feels guilty not that he killed Eric, but that he didn't stop his father. More details are given in 944. And, of course he's relieved that his brother's happy. He would want him to be happy regardless of the circumstances of his death.

[Drathon'Tal]

you could be right, Jaxzan Proditor but I dont know. it could be that his father had a magical experiment going and roy for whatever reason fouled it.

[Jaxzan Proditor]

you could be right, Jaxzan Proditor but I dont know. it could be that his father had a magical experiment going and roy for whatever reason fouled it.

That would be the reverse, where Eugene would feel guilty for not watching Roy. Roy feels guilty for not making his father stop. In addition, Roy says it's not his fault, and I don't think he would say that even if it was just an accident, or he would at least say something that indicates that.

[JustIgnoreMe]

I can only speak for myself, but I'm with Jaxzan: my reading was that Roy tried to make Eugene aware of the danger in Eugene's experiment/research but Eugene didn't listen. That's what led to Eric's death, the screaming, crying and the little sister a few years later, and eventually the breakdown of Eugene and Sara's marriage.

Roy does say, I think, that he know it wasn't his fault, and that it wasn't his responsibility to "watch the grown-up". That only fits with Eugene being the cause and Roy feeling powerless to prevent it.

[Aquillion]

YUSH

This is my new headcanon.

Xykon disguised himself as Enrique so he could get Roy's mother to tell him things about Roy.No, no, no.

Xykon disguised himself as Eric!


No, they are not. They are punitive only to those who don't belong there. Belkar would much rather spend an eternity fighting for supremacy in the CE than bored out of his mind in one of the peaceful G afterlives. That was Rich's point: the afterlives are supposed to be all equal - there aren't "good ones" and "bad ones" - only Good ones and Evil ones. Each one is appropriate for one of the alignment classifications, and whichever one you get is the one where you fit best and were you will spend a satisfying time until you are ready to move on, in whatever form that takes. And yes, that means that if you poke at the concept enough, you'll find plenty of holes - which was also Rich's point.My recollection is that this is one of those things that the books are inconsistent about.

But either way, the point is that D&D afterlives are not very well thought-out and have problems when you think about them too hard (since they're really there more to give you planes to adventure on and places to summon Outsiders from rather than to create a believable cosmology, and since they're tacked on to D&D's alignment system, which is itself a bit of a silly thing.) Since OOTS is based on those, you can't expect it to hold up beyond what's necessary for the story.

Anyway all this talk of babies in the CE afterlife has me picturing EVIL BABIES with unibrows.

[The Giant]

Yes, babies of Evil mothers go to the Evil afterlives. No, it's not fair.

Fairness is not a cosmological principle, fairness is a philosophical concept that not everyone agrees on. This is not strictly a Good/Evil split either; one could easily imagine Chaotic Good folks being in favor of a process that was rampantly unfair if that unfairness benefited the weak, with Lawful Evil folks opposed to the same system because they pulled themselves up by their bootstraps without it and so should everyone else. One could argue that "survival of the fittest" is the ultimate in fairness, in that it treats everyone equally with no exceptions, but it's not an ideal that most Good people promote.

Since the OOTS cosmos was created by a committee of equal gods with a wide spectrum of alignments, philosophies, and cultural tendencies, justice is only enforced to the degree that those who favor justice could negotiate its enforcement. In some instances, they were forced to compromise and allow unjust procedures in certain areas for the sake of avoiding Snarl 2.0. In this case, the relative fairness of having one rule that applied to everyone trumped the potential injustice of innocent babies going to Hell.

Further, if it really bothers you, remember that my previous statement said that if you want to imagine those babies reincarnating eventually, you could. Maybe the psychic impressions left by spending time in Hell subtly encourages many of them to veer away from Evil in their next life. Or maybe Good priests use these facts to try to sway Evil parents away from their dastardly paths: "Turn away from the darkness, lest you drag your swaddling babe down to the Pit in your wake!" Just because it's awful to think about the individual circumstances doesn't mean that it doesn't lead to a net increase in Good over the aggregate.

And just to be clear: There is no "overgod" in OOTS at all. There are the nonsentient cosmological forces of the four alignments (Good, Evil, Law, and Chaos), which can be tapped directly for clerical power if you prefer not to go through a deific intermediary, but they have no capacity to take action any more than the force of gravity does. They certainly took no part in shaping the rules and procedures of the OOTS afterlife, as that was entirely done by the gods themselves.

[Psyren]

Then I stand thoroughly corrected, and your third paragraph is good enough justification to mollify me. Objections rescinded.

*tips internet hat to Kish*

[Drathon'Tal]

Perhaps we hold too strongly to our alignment systems as players, and too strongly to ideas of religion and good and evil from real life. you hardly see anyone fighting for chaos in real life. and you dont see people demanding that there be but one God in the game. Taking grain of salt now. Alas for Eric. I agree with this:


I can only speak for myself, but I'm with Jaxzan: my reading was that Roy tried to make Eugene aware of the danger in Eugene's experiment/research but Eugene didn't listen. That's what led to Eric's death, the screaming, crying and the little sister a few years later, and eventually the breakdown of Eugene and Sara's marriage.

Roy does say, I think, that he know it wasn't his fault, and that it wasn't his responsibility to "watch the grown-up". That only fits with Eugene being the cause and Roy feeling powerless to prevent it.

[Emperor Time]

But I don't think you need to stay in that particular Outer Plane forever. Since isn't it possible to used the Outlands in order to travel to a different Outer Plane at least in theory. I could be mistaken about that but I think it possible for the high level adventurers and for characters that are being protected by them too.

[Aquillion]

Perhaps we hold too strongly to our alignment systems as players, and too strongly to ideas of religion and good and evil from real life. you hardly see anyone fighting for chaos in real life. and you dont see people demanding that there be but one God in the game. Taking grain of salt now. Alas for Eric.It depends what you mean by 'chaos'. Few people fight for Chaos as an abstract idea (and by its nature Chaos tends away from organized fights) but there are many people who reject the concepts of order and authority to one degree or another.

Although D&D's order / chaos divide is taken most directly from the fantasy novel Three Hearts and Three Lions, which had a sort of cold war between the forces of order as embodied by humans civilization, and the forces of chaos as embodied by the fairies -- a sort of primal, pre-human 'natural order' kind of thing.

It has its roots in this sort of divide between nature vs. artifice, and in this idea of a divide between chaos and civilization, which was popular in Victorian writing.

In more modern fiction... the Nolanverse Joker, say, is clearly on the side of Chaos. (All versions of the Joker are chaotic, but the Nolanverse one explicitly argues that he's fighting for chaos as an ideal. Of course, you can't take that entirely seriously, because he's chaotic and therefore not really committed to any ideal...) Or Jack Sparrow from Pirates of the Caribbean.

Chaotic types in real life are the kind of people you tend to hear described as "free spirits". (Or "homicidal maniacs", of course, if they're closer to the evil end of the spectrum.)

[Grey_Wolf_c]

you hardly see anyone fighting for chaos in real life.

I strongly disagree, but the only way to defend my position would involve politics and be a gross violation of forum rules. However, consider (privately): can you think of people who want to repeal laws because they find them too restrictive? Those people are fighting for "Chaos", i.e. liberty & freedom.

Grey Wolf

[DaggerPen]

Yes, babies of Evil mothers go to the Evil afterlives. No, it's not fair.

Fairness is not a cosmological principle, fairness is a philosophical concept that not everyone agrees on. This is not strictly a Good/Evil split either; one could easily imagine Chaotic Good folks being in favor of a process that was rampantly unfair if that unfairness benefited the weak, with Lawful Evil folks opposed to the same system because they pulled themselves up by their bootstraps without it and so should everyone else. One could argue that "survival of the fittest" is the ultimate in fairness, in that it treats everyone equally with no exceptions, but it's not an ideal that most Good people promote.

Since the OOTS cosmos was created by a committee of equal gods with a wide spectrum of alignments, philosophies, and cultural tendencies, justice is only enforced to the degree that those who favor justice could negotiate its enforcement. In some instances, they were forced to compromise and allow unjust procedures in certain areas for the sake of avoiding Snarl 2.0. In this case, the relative fairness of having one rule that applied to everyone trumped the potential injustice of innocent babies going to Hell.

Further, if it really bothers you, remember that my previous statement said that if you want to imagine those babies reincarnating eventually, you could. Maybe the psychic impressions left by spending time in Hell subtly encourages many of them to veer away from Evil in their next life. Or maybe Good priests use these facts to try to sway Evil parents away from their dastardly paths: "Turn away from the darkness, lest you drag your swaddling babe down to the Pit in your wake!" Just because it's awful to think about the individual circumstances doesn't mean that it doesn't lead to a net increase in Good over the aggregate.

And just to be clear: There is no "overgod" in OOTS at all. There are the nonsentient cosmological forces of the four alignments (Good, Evil, Law, and Chaos), which can be tapped directly for clerical power if you prefer not to go through a deific intermediary, but they have no capacity to take action any more than the force of gravity does. They certainly took no part in shaping the rules and procedures of the OOTS afterlife, as that was entirely done by the gods themselves.

Is it weird that this just makes me wonder even more about the Dark One's story re: goblin creation, and what gods may have been responsible for it if goblins were really created as XP bait?

[Reddish Mage]

And just to be clear: There is no "overgod" in OOTS at all. There are the nonsentient cosmological forces of the four alignments (Good, Evil, Law, and Chaos), which can be tapped directly for clerical power if you prefer not to go through a deific intermediary, but they have no capacity to take action any more than the force of gravity does. They certainly took no part in shaping the rules and procedures of the OOTS afterlife, as that was entirely done by the gods themselves.

Shouldn't neutrality be its own cosmological force to be consistent with D&D rules and what little metaphysics are present in Core?

[Ron Miel]

How am I supposed to outrun a lion in urban environment otherwise? Especially on rush our.

"We", Kemosabe?

[Rogar Demonblud]

Shouldn't neutrality be its own cosmological force to be consistent with D&D rules and what little metaphysics are present in Core?

Neutrality is kind of the Zen no-mind koan of the D&D alignment system.

[Reddish Mage]

Neutrality is kind of the Zen no-mind koan of the D&D alignment system.

I'm not sure there can possibly be a less helpful answer than that. :smallyuk:

[Keltest]

I'm not sure there can possibly be a less helpful answer than that. :smallyuk:

Give us time. :smallamused:

[Rogar Demonblud]

Neutrality cannot be explained, learned, discussed or comprehended. It can only be understood.

This is the path to enlightenment.

[Storm_Of_Snow]

I'm not sure there can possibly be a less helpful answer than that. :smallyuk:
Especially as one person's view of neutrality may be staying out of things and letting everyone else do what they want, and another's may be aggressively preventing the universe from going to one extreme or the other - if a good party kills an evil despot, they'll go out and either create another to take their place, or make sure a kind and benevolent ruler dies as well.

[Darth Paul]

In my group's campaigns, "Neutral" in practice is actually one of two overlapping alignments: "Neutral Greedy" or "Neutral Self-Centered". These are not mutually exclusive, a character (player) can be both at the same time.

For comparison purposes, see the ever-popular "Chaotic Stupid".

[Keltest]

In my group's campaigns, "Neutral" in practice is actually one of two overlapping alignments: "Neutral Greedy" or "Neutral Self-Centered". These are not mutually exclusive, a character (player) can be both at the same time.

For comparison purposes, see the ever-popular "Chaotic Stupid".

In my campaigns, "Neutral" usually translates as avoiding extremes. A neutral character wont volunteer to go rescue a princess, but he isn't going to hand over information that would allow an evil empire to conquer a small but well-run and prosperous kingdom either.

[brian 333]

Neutrality comes in two forms:

I don't care. This Neutral character doesn't see the big picture and won't look if you point it out to him. He's not interested in the agendas of Good, Evil, Law, or Chaos. It's not that he is greedy, or selfish, or has issues with any of them. He just wants to live his life the way it was meant to be lived and he wants to let others do the same. When the goals of others conflict with his own, (dingo wants to eat his baby, for example,) he will take action to protect his own, Otherwise, live and let live.

Preserve the Balance! This Neutral character is as militant a warrior in his cause as any Paladin or Blackguard. He is an active agent out to foil the plans of those who would skew true Balance to one side or another. If the agents of Law have been taking over with their 'Civilization,' he will act to destabilize it, while if the agents of Chaos have wrecked the hopes of peace with never-ending conflict, he will seek to put them in their place. He will allow none of the 'extreme' alignments to gain an upper hand. To this character Lawful Evil is every bit as dangerous as Chaotic Good, and he will allow neither to dominate his world without a fight.

Now you can apply those basic attitudes to various things, with a lion being in the first category and a druid in the second. You can also extrapolate outward on the various axes, such that Neutral Good may be someone who wants to see everyone have a shot at happiness, but who will only fight for it if the threat comes to him, or he may be someone who is a crusader against evil.

The Selfish and Greedy aspects of Neutrality are actually Chaotic, in which Self is placed above any other considerations. Selfish is the first example I gave, in that the selfish CN character just doesn't care enough about the wants or needs of others to do anything about it, while the Greedy character will actively take from them for his own benefit.

[Jaxzan Proditor]

Neutrality comes in two forms:

I don't care. This Neutral character doesn't see the big picture and won't look if you point it out to him. He's not interested in the agendas of Good, Evil, Law, or Chaos. It's not that he is greedy, or selfish, or has issues with any of them. He just wants to live his life the way it was meant to be lived and he wants to let others do the same. When the goals of others conflict with his own, (dingo wants to eat his baby, for example,) he will take action to protect his own, Otherwise, live and let live.

Preserve the Balance! This Neutral character is as militant a warrior in his cause as any Paladin or Blackguard. He is an active agent out to foil the plans of those who would skew true Balance to one side or another. If the agents of Law have been taking over with their 'Civilization,' he will act to destabilize it, while if the agents of Chaos have wrecked the hopes of peace with never-ending conflict, he will seek to put them in their place. He will allow none of the 'extreme' alignments to gain an upper hand. To this character Lawful Evil is every bit as dangerous as Chaotic Good, and he will allow neither to dominate his world without a fight.

Now you can apply those basic attitudes to various things, with a lion being in the first category and a druid in the second. You can also extrapolate outward on the various axes, such that Neutral Good may be someone who wants to see everyone have a shot at happiness, but who will only fight for it if the threat comes to him, or he may be someone who is a crusader against evil.

The Selfish and Greedy aspects of Neutrality are actually Chaotic, in which Self is placed above any other considerations. Selfish is the first example I gave, in that the selfish CN character just doesn't care enough about the wants or needs of others to do anything about it, while the Greedy character will actively take from them for his own benefit.
I like this answer, as I always have seen neutrality as either a force acting to balance between the extremes or the lack of choosing one of those extremes.

[Darth Paul]

I like this answer, as I always have seen neutrality as either a force acting to balance between the extremes or the lack of choosing one of those extremes.

Or not caring enough to get involved?

[factotum]

Or not caring enough to get involved?

I remember an illustration from the old D&D Basic rulebook (and boy, am I aging myself with that comment, but whatever...) which showed the Lawful, Chaotic and Neutral archetypes (no Good or Evil in Basic) with one guy who's trying to stab a helpless prisoner, another one who's holding him back from doing so, and the third one is standing behind them with his arms crossed, not even looking at what the other two are doing. Definitely an example of the "Don't care, when do we eat?" type of Neutral.

[Jaxzan Proditor]

Or not caring enough to get involved?

I think that can be one of the reasons why they don't pick a side.

[brian 333]

Ah, good old basic, where lawful clerics always cast the spell the right way and chaotic ones always cast it reversed. It paid to be neutral.

[Darth Paul]

I remember an illustration from the old D&D Basic rulebook (and boy, am I aging myself with that comment, but whatever...) ...

Welcome to the club. I wish I still had my red and blue rule books (Basic and Advanced, weren't they?) and the box they came in. I still have the TSR official dice that came in that box, somewhere in my dice bags.

The good old days, when "Elf", "Dwarf" and "Halfling" were a class and a race all in one. Did we have Half-Orcs back then?

[Rogar Demonblud]

Only as a thing to kill and loot for XP.

[factotum]

Welcome to the club. I wish I still had my red and blue rule books (Basic and Advanced, weren't they?)

Basic and Expert. Advanced was the "proper" D&D rules with the nine alignments and separation of class and race.

[Rogar Demonblud]

They're selling pdfs at DriveThru now. I've been running B2 for some of my youngish cousins all year.

[Darth Paul]

Basic and Expert. Advanced was the "proper" D&D rules with the nine alignments and separation of class and race.

It all comes back.

I still remember the first adventure I ever ran, for just 2 friends, in a dungeon built into the side of a volcano. There were Manes in the lowest level, where the volcano had an entrance to the Lower Planes...

Good times. Good times.

I bet Roy ran an adventure or two for Eric while they were together on the Mountain. What do you think?

[Jaxzan Proditor]

I feel like such a youngster around you guys. :smalltongue:

[Psyren]

I bet Roy ran an adventure or two for Eric while they were together on the Mountain. What do you think?

They were too busy playing minecraft :smallbiggrin: