What is the afterlife like for clerics of dead gods? (Forgotten Realms)

[MonkeySage]

One of my players is a kobold Cleric of Bahamut in the Forgotten Realms setting, 1374 DR.

Should the worst happen, I'm wondering what I should describe to this player for an afterlife. As I understand it, Bahamut is dead, and cults worshiping him are pretty rare at this time.

Would he go to the Wall of the Faithless?

I also wanna come up with an interesting explanation for the Cleric's ability to cast spells, like perhaps bahamut isn't really dead after all or something like that.

[BaronDoctor]

A quick check through Forgotten Realms says that Torm was friends with Bahamut, or became friends with Torm. Perhaps you might explore that space. Perhaps Bahamut's not dead, or perhaps Torm decided to cover for him and assume the parts of his role that they shared?

[hamishspence]

Bahamut's "death" at the hands of Tiamat, long before, didn't kill him permanently - it just reduced him to the rank of "celestial paragon".

Shortly after 1359 DR, the actions of Gareth Dragonsbane (planting the Tree of Souls, etc) brought Bahamut back to Lesser Deity status (Dragons of Faerun).

Going by the timeline - he's still a Lesser Deity in 1374.

For those who want to worship a still-dead deity, gain power from them, and not suffer The Fate of the Faithless, there is the Servant of the Fallen feat from Lost Empires of Faerun - it's not clear what fate they do suffer, but they can be raised or resurrected normally. I would guess they go to what remains of that deity's domain, if it's on the Outer Planes.

[Particle_Man]

I'm picturing a divine equivalent of Weekend at Bernie's. ;)

[Bronk]

It's also good to remember that most of the gods, and especially Bahamut, have a planar presence and are established as gods on multiple worlds. Depending on how you set up your game, they're present either on multiple prime material planes, multiple crystal spheres, or both.

Demoting or killing a god in one place leaves its main presence unchanged. There was a whole series of novels that used this idea (the Finder's Bane trilogy?) by killing Moander on Faerun, then taking the fight to his planar divine realm and killing him more permanently there.

So, even if Bahamut is currently dead in your game, you cleric could still become a petitioner in Bahamut's divine realm when he dies.

[hamishspence]

Demoting or killing a god in one place leaves its main presence unchanged. There was a whole series of novels that used this idea (the Finder's Bane trilogy?) by killing Moander on Faerun, then taking the fight to his planar divine realm and killing him more permanently there.

Finder's Stone trilogy - but yes.

Finder's Bane is about an unsuccessful attempt to resurrect Bane, which Finder and one of his priests end up thwarting. In the context of 3.0 it seems like a bit of a shaggy dog story given that Bane was resurrected only a couple of years or so later (his son Xvim exploded and Bane came out).

[Bronk]

[QUOTE=hamishspence;21651513]Finder's Stone trilogy - but yes.


Right! That's the one.

Well, anyway, having remembered more of that series, it might not be the best example, since Moander might have been a Faerun only god. Still, Bahamut in particular has, at any given time, several different levels of godhood depending on which world you're in, and yet they're all the same one. I think this came up in some of the Afroakuma planar question threads as well.

[GilesTheCleric]

It's also possible that your Cleric, though worshipping Bahamut, is gaining their actual spellcasting from some other, extant deity. I'm AFB so I can't quote, but there are many instances where the books say that you can worship just about anything (including eg archfiends, and BoED describes the same for archangels), and some other actual rank 1+ will step in to provide your spells. Same goes for dead deities, where an actual deity will grant spells to the worshippers of that deity.

[hamishspence]

Orcus is another good example of a being that has varying status on varying worlds - on some worlds he's a full deity, on others he's "just" a demon prince.

[Darth Ultron]

One of my players is a kobold Cleric of Bahamut in the Forgotten Realms setting, 1374 DR.

Should the worst happen, I'm wondering what I should describe to this player for an afterlife. As I understand it, Bahamut is dead, and cults worshiping him are pretty rare at this time.

In 1374 DR Bahamut is alive and a lesser god, unless your homebrewing something different.




Would he go to the Wall of the Faithless?

Someone worshiping something is not ''faithless''. He might be considered one of the False. Though note the souls of the faithful can spend ''some time'' on The Fugue Plane waiting for their deity to show up..and that can be centuries and even ''forever''.



I also wanna come up with an interesting explanation for the Cleric's ability to cast spells, like perhaps bahamut isn't really dead after all or something like that.

Well, plenty of gods have ''died'' and ''come back to life'' before...