Eberron: As an Epic PC, how would you create Heaven?

[Clistenes]

This is a thought experiment. I don't think I will ever get to try it in a game...

Let say you have a Good aligned PC or a whole Good aligned party who has reached Epic levels... 25 HD, 30 HD, 40 HD, whatever... they are amazingly powerful, immortal, with lots of nine level spells, they sit on a mountain of magical items and own a lump of gold the size of a moon...

Chances are they are top dogs of the setting, unless the Overlords are released, or the Dragons of Argonessen unite against you...

Now, since you are as close as a gods as any being that is going to walk Eberron, and you are Good aligned, you feel tempted to try to fix the whole thing with the sucky afterlife... In short, you want to create a decent afterlife at least for Good and Neutral people (and maybe even for some deserving Evil people too, Eberron's alignments being less straight than in other settings?).

Becoming a "real" deity is unnecessary, real deities not being really a thing in Eberron (you may wish to become a Sovereign, as per draconic lore,... but since Sovereigns don't interact with the world after ascending, would it be a step in the right direction? I'm not sure, and Sovereigns may not even exist, so let forget about that, and remain as "just" obscenely powerful PCs).

You can create a Church of You and anoint clerics (if they have faith in you, they will get spells despite you not being a real deity) if you feel it is necessary, but that is hardly the goal. The goal is to create Heaven.

So, how would you go about it? (without Epic Spellcasting shenanigans, preferably...)

There are several routes you could try:

1.-Create an Astral Demiplane with the Timeless trait. Use True Resurrection (Reincarnation for those who were very old when they died) to bring back people and have them live there forever. The problem is, that won't work on people who died of old age.

2.-Doing the same as in 1., but True Polymorph everybody into Angels so they won't ever age (removing the need to give you Demiplane the Timeless trait).

3.-Doing the same as in 1.. but creating something similar to the Citadel of White Exile, a place with a Major Positive Energy trait while people don't age (is that even possible in Eberron?)

4.-Creating an Ethereal Demiplane, turn dead people into Sacred Watchers or some similar Ghost-like Deathless creature, bring them there.

5.-Create some kind of Ancestor worshipping religion, have people turn their dead loved ones into some kind of Spirit creature or Incorporeal Deathless who will take care of them. I'm not sure what template would use and how to give it to dead people...

xp needs could be provided by a Church; you could have them fight non-lethal gladiatorial games to honor their dead and get their xp with Pipes of Power, or have them celebrate some orgiastic rites and harvest Ambrosia using some Book of Exalted Deeds shenanigans.

Of course, an arrangement like those would be prone to explode. You would have to indoctrinate people so they would build a stable, content, self-policing society, and probably you would have to restrict the alignment of the people allowed in to limit the chances of it all breaking from inside out... Giving them a mission to keep them occupied would help too...

You would have to strike a balance between keeping your Heaven a restricted, small but very stable club vs making it open and big, but prone to implode with a lot of collateral damage...

So, mechanically speaking, how would you go about it? How would you create Heaven?

EDIT: Maruts will become tasty, tasty xp if they dare to come...

[icefractal]

You can't bring back people who die of old age ... so you simply need to kill them before that happens. In other words, you need to construct a grim reaper - or many grim reapers, more likely.

These would be some kind of minions who use divinations to find when people are close to dying of old age, teleport to them, kill them, and take their body to heaven for reincarnation (research something similar to the Cyclic Reincarnation spell from Pathfinder for best results). Ideally they should be hard to see also; maybe use Ethereal Marauders with HiPS as the base.

If you have really ridiculous wealth (or a means to circumvent it), you can skip the creatures and just use Wish to pull the soon-to-die into heaven. Either way, you'll be doing some heavy-duty divinations to find all the soon-to-die people.


Something you'll have to deal with is people not getting along. If two people are both good enough for heaven, but truly hate each-other and would keep fighting even in the 'afterlife', then what? There are a few options I can think of:
1) More than one demiplane for heaven, put them in separate ones. But what if they both want to interact with the same third party?
2) Tell them to suck it up, have 'angels' enforcing reasonable behavior.
3) Rewrite their minds so they can get along.
4) Rewrite their memories so they don't recognize each-other, and tell them both that the other has been cast out. Could backfire, but hey, you can rewrite that too.
5) Discount solution: Heaven is just a room full of catatonic people. They're all inside Microcosms (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/psionic/powers/microcosm.htm) where they're experiencing heaven however they want it to be.

[Gildedragon]

You can't bring back people who die of old age ... so you simply need to kill them before that happens. In other words, you need to construct a grim reaper - or many grim reapers, more likely.

These would be some kind of minions who use divinations to find when people are close to dying of old age, teleport to them, kill them, and take their body to heaven for reincarnation (research something similar to the Cyclic Reincarnation spell from Pathfinder for best results). Ideally they should be hard to see also; maybe use Ethereal Marauders with HiPS as the base.

If you have really ridiculous wealth (or a means to circumvent it), you can skip the creatures and just use Wish to pull the soon-to-die into heaven. Either way, you'll be doing some heavy-duty divinations to find all the soon-to-die people.


Something you'll have to deal with is people not getting along. If two people are both good enough for heaven, but truly hate each-other and would keep fighting even in the 'afterlife', then what? There are a few options I can think of:
1) More than one demiplane for heaven, put them in separate ones. But what if they both want to interact with the same third party?
2) Tell them to suck it up, have 'angels' enforcing reasonable behavior.
3) Rewrite their minds so they can get along.
4) Rewrite their memories so they don't recognize each-other, and tell them both that the other has been cast out. Could backfire, but hey, you can rewrite that too.
5) Discount solution: Heaven is just a room full of catatonic people. They're all inside Microcosms (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/psionic/powers/microcosm.htm) where they're experiencing heaven however they want it to be.

5 is pretty good. One could go into Dolloruh and do that to the souls there.

[Afgncaap5]

Meanwhile, beyond the veil of Dollurh, Arawai and The Traveler discuss current events in a rare conversation between the Sovereigns and the Dark Six...

***

"But... but they don't get to the actual Heaven this way... they miss out on the good one!"
"See, this is why I destroy things. Lets ya move on."
"No, that doesn't always work out well enough..."
"Fine, fine. Just don't let The Keeper know why his supply chain is interrupted."
"Should we alert Aureon, see if he wants to get some of his paladins in on this?"
"Ugh. No, he probably already knows. And you know how insistent he is on letting mortals handle their own affairs and denying them the curse of certainty. Besides, their set-up doesn't look too bad to me."
"Maybe... Dol Dorn and Olladra's agents might wind up getting into the works one way or the other."
"And don't leave out The Mockery, this will appeal to him in some way."
"Must you?"
"The others of the Six wouldn't be denied even if I wished to stop them. In fact, I think Olladra and I should set up another wager about the goals of everyone else's pawns..."
"I hate when you two do that."
"Not as much as Aureon does. Though you at least take issue with them being called pawns... In any event, this may be the most interesting thing that happened since the Undying Court. Let's see how it unfolds for a bit, shall we?"

[weckar]

I've never heard of these Pipes of Power, and the name seems too generic for Google. May I be sauced?

[Clistenes]

You can't bring back people who die of old age ... so you simply need to kill them before that happens. In other words, you need to construct a grim reaper - or many grim reapers, more likely.

These would be some kind of minions who use divinations to find when people are close to dying of old age, teleport to them, kill them, and take their body to heaven for reincarnation (research something similar to the Cyclic Reincarnation spell from Pathfinder for best results). Ideally they should be hard to see also; maybe use Ethereal Marauders with HiPS as the base.

If you have really ridiculous wealth (or a means to circumvent it), you can skip the creatures and just use Wish to pull the soon-to-die into heaven. Either way, you'll be doing some heavy-duty divinations to find all the soon-to-die people.


Something you'll have to deal with is people not getting along. If two people are both good enough for heaven, but truly hate each-other and would keep fighting even in the 'afterlife', then what? There are a few options I can think of:
1) More than one demiplane for heaven, put them in separate ones. But what if they both want to interact with the same third party?
2) Tell them to suck it up, have 'angels' enforcing reasonable behavior.
3) Rewrite their minds so they can get along.
4) Rewrite their memories so they don't recognize each-other, and tell them both that the other has been cast out. Could backfire, but hey, you can rewrite that too.
5) Discount solution: Heaven is just a room full of catatonic people. They're all inside Microcosms (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/psionic/powers/microcosm.htm) where they're experiencing heaven however they want it to be.

That's the reason I said you would need indoctrination. People should join on their own will, knowing that somebody they don't get along could find their way there too...


Meanwhile, beyond the veil of Dollurh, Arawai and The Traveler discuss current events in a rare conversation between the Sovereigns and the Dark Six...

***

"But... but they don't get to the actual Heaven this way... they miss out on the good one!"

Well, if the Sovereigns had the grace of informing their followers that an actual Heaven already exists we would save ourselves SO much effort! (*******S!)


I've never heard of these Pipes of Power, and the name seems too generic for Google. May I be sauced?

Those are a magic item that allows you to suck xp from other people and use it for crafting. I will look the source later...

EDIT: It is in the Book of Eldritch Might.

[AOKost]

I'd suggest using Leadership shenanigans to gather followers and move them to a timeless 'kingdom' or domain... I like the other ideas like Microcosms and Ambrosia, and think they would and should work great together! Forming a religion would probably be the easiest way to attract like-minded people, but being a good general/leader would go a long way toward that end also. Friendly high-level Artificers are probably some of the most OP characters in the game in my opinion, even when compared to Wizards, Sorcerers, and the like, for the shear ability to have magic items that they have crafted that can do everything the Wizard and Sorcerer do. Psions are a bit of a different story, and that includes Psionic Artificers!

[Karl Aegis]

Plane Shift to Arcadia.

[gkathellar]

Well the easiest solution would be to make Dolurrh nicer, which while nontrivial gets around all of the pseudo-fascist hoops you'd have to jump through otherwise. Even in that case, the moment you decide who to start letting in, this starts to sounds like an ethical disaster waiting to happen.

[Madara]

Well the easiest solution would be to make Dolurrh nicer, which while nontrivial gets around all of the pseudo-fascist hoops you'd have to jump through otherwise. Even in that case, the moment you decide who to start letting in, this starts to sounds like an ethical disaster waiting to happen.

Eh, D&D has a static good/evil scale, so you could probably manage. If you use Detect Hostile Intent (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/psionic/powers/detectHostileIntent.htm) persisted and with a crazy range through who-knows-what shenanigans, then you could stop any in-fighting before it happens, even among the good.

[gkathellar]

Eh, D&D has a static good/evil scale, so you could probably manage. If you use Detect Hostile Intent (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/psionic/powers/detectHostileIntent.htm) persisted and with a crazy range through who-knows-what shenanigans, then you could stop any in-fighting before it happens, even among the good.

Yeah I dunno that leaving people to suffer and turn into shades just because they're jerks really sounds Good to me, especially given Eberron's huge deemphasis on alignment. I'm talking less about infighting and more about the sheer arrogance of deciding who does and does not get into heaven.

That said, the biggest issue would be preventing the memory loss and fading away that naturally takes place on Dolurrh. It might simply be best to make the process comfortable, more a "river Lethe" than a "Yomi" sort of experience. That roughly approximates the afterlife of the great wheel, in any case.

[Afgncaap5]

Well, if the Sovereigns had the grace of informing their followers that an actual Heaven already exists we would save ourselves SO much effort! (*******S!)

I know, right? Freakin' Aureon...

[Gildedragon]

Make a demiplane of bliss, plant an oak tree there
Get a psion friend.
Acorn of far travel, plop it into quintessence, drop it into a Portahole. Fill Portahole with the acorns. Use mage hand to pull acorns out, one at a time, and give them to every soul I'm Doluruh
Repeat

[Clistenes]

Yeah I dunno that leaving people to suffer and turn into shades just because they're jerks really sounds Good to me, especially given Eberron's huge deemphasis on alignment. I'm talking less about infighting and more about the sheer arrogance of deciding who does and does not get into heaven.

That said, the biggest issue would be preventing the memory loss and fading away that naturally takes place on Dolurrh. It might simply be best to make the process comfortable, more a "river Lethe" than a "Yomi" sort of experience. That roughly approximates the afterlife of the great wheel, in any case.

You know, I'm not sure about what happens to the mortals who visit Dolurrh... They get the Shade template from Forgotten Realms? And how are those different, mechanically speaking, from FR's Shades?

And the souls of dead people... what they look like? Planescape petitioners? Ghosts? Spectres? Wraiths? Shadows? Umbral Creatures? Shadow Creatures? Shades?

EDIT: It seems that, if you grab a dead person from Dolurrh and transport him or her to Eberron, he or she can just keep living on there, and it is considered a form of resurrection, so I guess they aren't Undead. So, I guess dead people are Shades?

[Clistenes]

By the way... about non-Outsiders native to other planes, like Axiomatic creatures from Daanvi, the Boumman, Githyanki and Githzerai from the Astral Sea, Gnomes native to Thelanis, Woodlings from Lammania... etc... Do we know if they all go to Dolurrh after their demise?

Also, we know Rakshasas can't take class levels without the help of powerful artifacts or similar sources of power, but, what about other fiends? Can Succubi from Mabar or Pit Fiends from Fernia or Mariliths from Shavarath take class levels?

[Clistenes]

So how about this:

Step one, secure a stream of xp for crafting: Capture as many among the most evil people in Eberron as you can, but not the powerful ones, just the low level scum.

Use Microcosm, Elation, Good Hope and Distilled Joy to get Ambrosia from them. Use Modify Memory so they think their illusory world is the real world and the only one they have ever lived in.

Use the xp to create an Astral Demiplane with the Timeless trait. Store them there. Use the xp to cast Wishes to create magic items that keep the xp farm running (or just create Simulacrums who cast the spells all the time).

Step two: create your base. Use the Distilled Joy's xp to create a Demiplane connected to Syrania, Daanvi, Irian and Lammania, so it works as a constant Manifest zone for all for planes. From Syrania would get a Strong Good Alignment and enhanced flight. From Daanvi, Strong Law Alignment (to help things go as planned). From Irian, the Positive Energy trait. From Lammania, the bountiful nature.

Make the plane so that people don't age there, just like the Citadel of White Exile in Forgotten Realms.

Make it so both Ethereal and Material beings are solid while in your Demiplane (hence, Sacred Watchers will be solid there).

Make the Demiplane always remote from all other planes and from Eberron

As masters of the Demiplane, block Gate spells. Make it that it's possible to Plane Shift into or out of the plane only in specific places in Daanvi, Irian, Lammania, Syrania and the Demiplane itself. Use Weirdstones to block even Plane Shift when you don't want people to travel in or out of the plane.

You can keep a secret Portal so you don't have to cast Gate if you have to move to Eberron and back many times in a short period of time. The Portal should be keyed and kept in an Antimagic Field when you aren't using it.

Use Wish to create contingencies that will activate if somebody tries to enter using Wish.

Create the most powerful Golems you can, 80 HD Sacred Watcher Shield Guardian Advanced Iron Golems, 54 HD Sacred Watcher Shield Guardian Advanced Greater Shadesteel Golem, 40 HD Sacred Watcher Shield Guardian Advanced Prismatic Golems, 30 HD Sacred Watcher Shield Guardian Advanced Nimblewrights...etc. Create Simulacrums of those to guard the Demiplane.

Create Simulacrums of yourself and other powerful creatures.

Step three: Craft your ideology/religion. At the beginning there was only one God. This divinity split into three lesser divinities: Sybaris (Energy, Power, Light, Creation, Creativity, Conservation), Eberron (Life, Birth, Matter, Elements, Diversity, Change) and Khyber (Entropy, Decay, Stagnation, Darkness, Destruction, Death).

The rest of the universe was created by emanation from those three divinities. Everything that exists is a part of Sybaris, Eberron and Khyber, an aspect of them that has been given independent existance, or more often, a mix of aspects from all three of the Progenitors.

All mortal souls come from Syberis, born by accident from its death throes, but they are mixed with the essence of Eberron and Khyber due to the chaotic way the world Eberron and of its inhabitants were created.

Mortal souls are born thanks to the power of Eberron, but they go to Dolurrh due to the pull of Khyber. Mortality, is, hence, an accident and a tragedy provoked by the accidental nature of Eberron's creation and of souls themselves.

The Coualts, like the Angels, were made of the essence almost pure of Syberis, and because of that the Silver Flame is strongly Syberis-aspected, but the Silver Flame is still but a tiny spark of Syberis's power.

The Sovereigns and the Dark Six aren't individual beings, but impersonal abstract forces, aspects of Syberis, Eberron and Khyber that are part of every soul and of every thing in Eberron (and maybe in the Planes). It is okay to revere them so long of you remember that they aren't beings out of yourself, but aspects of your own soul, which is in turn a spark of Syberis mixed with Eberron and Khyber's essence.

The pursose of our Order is to free and cleanse the mortal souls, Syberis's sparks, from Khyber and his pull, and return them to their rightful place in the Heavens.

Step four: Create your Order/Church/Organization. Use the Leadership rules from Power of Faerun: If you are the leader of an organization, you number of followers grows as if you had the Epic Leadership feat. Or just take the Epic Leadership feat (I think it's a waste, though...).

Recruit and train Clerics of Syberis (of your philosophy) and Paladins but above all, try to attract Shamans (Oriental Adventures's Green Ronin's, Moongose's), Spirit Shamans, Ancestral Speakers, Ghost Guides. Encourage old people to become Revered Elders.

If you have trouble finding those, train your own variant Adepts with the spells they will need. You can also use Simulacrum and True Polymorph (create Simulacrums, use True Polymorph to change them into different people) to create more divine spellcasters for your church (but be careful, don't let the Lords of Dust or the Chamber discover those).

Use Channeling a lot. Recruit Celestials or create Simulacra of them, and send them to help your priests.

Teach them a Lawful Good ideology of compassion, helping each other, revering your elders (if they are worthy) and purifying your soul from negative emotions.

Teach your priesthood a spell to create Sacred Watchers and Crypt Wardens. Good people can stay next to their families or to the church helping them as Sacred Watchers. Those who want to move on, become Crypt Wardens and are sent to your Demiplane, but their bodies remain behind, ready to rise as warriors in defense of the church.

Neutral and Evil people are strongly encouraged to become recipients of an Atonement spell, redemption quest or task included. Those who die during the quest or task are Raised back to life. As for people who die before asking for Atonement, research a spell that raises dead people back to life for a limited amount of time, in order to ask them if they want to Atone before facing final death.

People who fails their Atonement due to lack of sincere commitment and die befores succeeding at another try, or who die of old age during the redemption quest are made into Telthors, so they have another chance to redeem themselves. Telthors of Evil people are recipient of a Purify the Wicked spell, becoming Sanctified Telthors. Both Neutral Telthors and Sanctified Telthors are made to serve a time, then True Resurrected, Reincarnated or True Polymorphed back to mortality, and then try another Atonement spell.

Be VERY cautious, careful and secretive while creating your Order. Use Mind Blank on yourself at all times. Try to keep a low profile, avoid attracting the Lords of Dust's, the Dragons' or the Quori's attention too soon. When that happens (and it will happen), try to make them believe that your religion has arised spontaneously.

Spread your religion among the denizens of the Planes even before you do among the people in Eberron.

Step five: Create a branch of the Order dedicated to rescuing the souls from Dolurrh itself. Send powerful preachers to try to convince the recently dead to join your religion. Resurrect or Reincarnate them, and use Atonement or Sanctify the Wicked on those Neutral or Evil. You can use Sanctify the Wicked directly on evil Shades.

Sanctified Shades are tasked with fighting the Maruts if they try to interfere.

[Calthropstu]

Research the epic spell "create heaven?"

[Clistenes]

Research the epic spell "create heaven?"

As I said, I would try to avoid Epic Spellcasting shenanigans. Too easy.

What the hell, using Epic Spellcasting you could probably change Dolurrh, chunk by chunk, into something like Elysium or Mout Celestia...

[Calthropstu]

Ah missed that. I suppose you could use create demiplane + permanency, but I fail to see how you can initiate a soul judging process. In fact, RAW, I see nothing for guiding souls to places to be judged.

I doubt this can be accomplished without epic spell casting shenanigans.

[Clistenes]

Ah missed that. I suppose you could use create demiplane + permanency, but I fail to see how you can initiate a soul judging process. In fact, RAW, I see nothing for guiding souls to places to be judged.

I doubt this can be accomplished without epic spell casting shenanigans.

Well, most people in the forum don't want to distrute rewards and punishments. Some want to open the doors to everybody who wants to come. My favourite option is to allow anybody who want to enter to do so, but they have to prove they are worthy. More a voluntary test than a judgement.

Several versions of Demiplane-creating spells are permanent.