The Wall of the Faithless

[tadkins]

Admittedly I do not know a whole lot about the Forgotten Realms setting. My knowledge of FR basically consists of terrible Drizzt memes and the Wall of the Faithless.

Most importantly, I am wondering, if one was inclined to do so, how one would destroy it. If it is even possible, that is.

It might be my RL sensibilities seeping in but a world where ones soul is forced to endure terrible torment until they wither away into building material, for the horrible and unforgivable crime of not pledging themselves to some arrogant deity is pretty messed up to me.

I've never been asked to join a Forgotten Realms game which is probably a good thing. I would be quite conflicted. But if I were to make a character in that setting, I'd lean toward one that has aspirations toward destroying that damn wall. Can it actually be done or is it just silly dreaming and whining from this RL atheist?

[Mordaedil]

Being a Real Life atheist doesn't really matter much with regards to D&D-style games, because deities aren't really superstition, but active participants, and they even have an overdeity that acts as a deity that governs deities, called Ao, whom forced the deities to walk as mortals for a period. Like, it doesn't matter much with regards to your personal beliefs (or lack of belief in this circumstance), in Forgotten Realms, atheism is almost like being a flat-earther or science denier.

That said, there are faithful who think the wall is really unfair and have set it as their goal to tear the wall down. It was the entire plot of Mask of the Betrayer campaign for Neverwinter Nights 2, if you are interested in exploring what it involves. (if you don't have time to play it, read/watch a Let's Play)

[tadkins]

Being a Real Life atheist doesn't really matter much with regards to D&D-style games, because deities aren't really superstition, but active participants, and they even have an overdeity that acts as a deity that governs deities, called Ao, whom forced the deities to walk as mortals for a period. Like, it doesn't matter much with regards to your personal beliefs (or lack of belief in this circumstance), in Forgotten Realms, atheism is almost like being a flat-earther or science denier.

That said, there are faithful who think the wall is really unfair and have set it as their goal to tear the wall down. It was the entire plot of Mask of the Betrayer campaign for Neverwinter Nights 2, if you are interested in exploring what it involves. (if you don't have time to play it, read/watch a Let's Play)

It's not about not believing they exist, it's just about not wanting to consign yourself to any of them. I just want to be a fighter or a wizard who lives my own life without worrying about what gods and their minions are doing. Plain and simple, I don't really like gods. Strutting around the cosmos acting like they're better than everyone, pfeh!

In most settings I have the choice to be agnostic. FR doesn't give you that choice, and that just kind of bothers me a little.

I even tried that MMO game "Neverwinter" for a brief period and on the character selection screen, was looking for the agnostic or something similar option. Couldn't find it. My friend was waiting for me to start up with him though so I eventually sighed, said "eff it", and picked some fool named "Kelemvor". The choice was basically throwing a dart at a dartboard though since I seriously could not have cared less.

[Mordaedil]

Neverwinter the MMO was made by an irrelevant company who doesn't get D&D.

I'm talking about the actual RPG games called Neverwinter Nights. Big difference.

In Neverwinter Nights video games, you can absolutely play an atheist. In NWN2 there is a "no deity" block and and for NWN1 it's a text field you can put anything into.

[Fizban]

Pretty much everyone hates the wall of the faithless once they hear about it, and IIRC some of the FR gods also hate it, possibly including the one who's actually in charge of it.

But as a planar cosmology level construct, it can't be destroyed or undone even by single deity. I can't remember if it was specifically established by Ao, but the whole thing has enough momentum now that you'd basically need to either unite the gods or convince the overdeity that literally only exists as an excuse for the DM/setting writer to smack the gods around, to do the job for you.

And when maintaining the status quo costs the gods nothing and has a chance to convert people to gain them something. . . yeah. The DM can tear it down, the PCs can rail against it and have adventures about it, but it's up to the DM to justify anything that could be done to it.

[tadkins]

I'm talking about the actual RPG games called Neverwinter Nights. Big difference.

Right, I know. I'm assuming the universe is the same though isn't it?


Pretty much everyone hates the wall of the faithless once they hear about it, and IIRC some of the FR gods also hate it, possibly including the one who's actually in charge of it.

But as a planar cosmology level construct, it can't be destroyed or undone even by single deity. I can't remember if it was specifically established by Ao, but the whole thing has enough momentum now that you'd basically need to either unite the gods or convince the overdeity that literally only exists as an excuse for the DM/setting writer to smack the gods around, to do the job for you.

And when maintaining the status quo costs the gods nothing and has a chance to convert people to gain them something. . . yeah. The DM can tear it down, the PCs can rail against it and have adventures about it, but it's up to the DM to justify anything that could be done to it.

Ah, gotcha. Thanks for the info. I figured there might be some cool artifact or high level wizard trick (that folks on these forums are prone to inventing from time to time :D) a person can do to blow that thing up.

[Mordaedil]

Right, I know. I'm assuming the universe is the same though isn't it?
I don't quite get what you mean by that? They are made by entirely different developers and have nothing really in common? They both use Forgotten Realms as a campaign setting, but Neverwinter doesn't use D&D as a base ruleset. And heck its release was after 4th edition, close to before 5th edition released. They certainly don't have the same continuity because both NWN games have Neverwinter be destroyed as a part of the sequences of the game. And Mask of the Betrayer takes place in Thay.

[cagemarrow]

If you wanted to take direct action against the wall I remember reading that demons from the Abyss occasionally make attacks against it to steal the soul stuff it's made of. They then bring it back to the Abyss where it is converted into the soul worms or maggots that possibly evolve into more demons eventually.

It wouldn't be hard for a high level character to instigate more attacks like that on the wall. If they didn't care about the fate of those stolen free.

It wouldn't really destroy the wall though. Just be a massive protest against it.

[tadkins]

They both use Forgotten Realms as a campaign setting

That is what I meant. They take place in the same world.

I never played it so I cannot comment further. It's good to know they're not forced into the same options though.


If you wanted to take direct action against the wall I remember reading that demons from the Abyss occasionally make attacks against it to steal the soul stuff it's made of. They then bring it back to the Abyss where it is converted into the soul worms or maggots that possibly evolve into more demons eventually.

It wouldn't be hard for a high level character to instigate more attacks like that on the wall. If they didn't care about the fate of those stolen free.

It wouldn't really destroy the wall though. Just be a massive protest against it.

My goal would be to free the souls trapped within, nothing more.

[SirKazum]

My friend was waiting for me to start up with him though so I eventually sighed, said "eff it", and picked some fool named "Kelemvor".

I might be wrong (FR lore is full of subtleties and changes a lot with the different editions), but isn't Kelemvor basically the guy responsible for maintaining the Wall of the Faithless? That's some amazing irony right there :smallbiggrin:

[tadkins]

I might be wrong (FR lore is full of subtleties and changes a lot with the different editions), but isn't Kelemvor basically the guy responsible for maintaining the Wall of the Faithless? That's some amazing irony right there :smallbiggrin:

Might be. I honestly had no idea about anything in that universe. I just clicked buttons to get me into the game quicker so I could play with a friend. xD

[Florian]

@tadkins:

FR is an example for a "faith-based reality". That means that the major deities actually are what they represent. Kill the death god and people will stop dying for a while, kill the god of magic and magic will cease to function... that is, until the replacement steps up and takes the place.

AO degreed that deities are powered by faith. In context, when the god of the sun is the actual sun and people stop believing and/or worshipping, then the sun goes out. Or when a major race deity bites the dust, that race starts to dwindle unless it can find another patron to represent them in reality.

Faith is reality and people in the FR should know that and how it is all connected, so it really amounts to willfully following "flat earth believes" (or overly nihilistic tendencies) to not pick one deity that you feel connected to and have faith in that. (And no, as any follower of Bane can tell you, believing in Bane doesn't prevent you from killing Bane and taking his place)

[BWR]

My real life sensibilities are often offended by stuff in games. I don't play RPGs to moralize or reaffirm my RL beliefs, I play RPGs to have fun and sometimes to think differently than I do IRL. This doesn't just include weird physics, the existence of magic, and different personalities, it also includes other morality and the moral consequences of the setting. So I accept that the gods of Dragonlance can drop a mountain on a city and devastate a continent for centuries in the name of balance (one supposedly good guy was getting a bit uppity, so they obviously had to kill thousands of innocents to make it right) and still be good, I accept that the extreme honor (which is definitely not the same as 'good') and caste system of Rokugan is the right way to do things, I accept that the Wall of the Faithless is how the world works and any PC in FR will want to avoid it even if they hate the system.

Playing an atheist can D&D be like being a witch on Discworld: you know gods exist, you just don't worship the buggers. The Athar of Planescape insist that true divinity is something beyond what the 'gods' have shown themselves to be. The so-called gods are just powerful beings with delusions of grandeur. Being the sort of atheist that denies the existence of higher beings altogether is hard to pull off without being basically a RL science denier.

Nthing NWN: Mask of the Betrayer. It's an excellent game.

[Glorthindel]

I consider the wall to be basically a dust filter or silt trap for the afterlife. Basically, souls have to go somewhere. Exactly where doesn't ultimately matter, but they have to end up in some place. Given the number of gods, there is no general heaven that people can be mailed off to, only the specific "heavens" of the relevant dieties. The Wall is basically the reject bin, where everything that doesn't go specifically somewhere else has to go.

When someone dies, whatever being sorts through the souls, checks which diety has tagged them, and mails them off to the relevant place. No tag, you get tossed into the waste pile. Which happens to be wall shaped.

"Freeing" someone from the wall (or breaking it) serves no purpose, since there is nowhere for those spirits to go, they would just gravitate back to the reject pile, whatever form it may take. As previously mentioned you could steal them, but that would explicitly involve taking them somewhere else, and the only somewhere elses available are other gods domains.

An alternative might be trying to create a more pleasant and preferable somewhere else, but the nature of FR gods being what it is, the act of creating such a "heaven for the faithless" might end up classifying you a diety yourself, and require the "faithless" to follow you in order to get in - which they wouldn't, because if they were willing to give lip service to some diety in order to guarantee a cushy afterlife, they would already be doing it. Its a circular problem that just leaves you back where you started.

[Pugwampy]

Well in Faerun land , The gods need people to pray and have faith in them or they weaken and eventually die or disappear or whatever . Choosing not to worship any god is tantamount to Deicide .
Society frowns on you murdering your neighbor ..........SAME DIFF .

The gods are nothing without you and youre so boned without them . Also supposedly everyone already reflects some sort of God or Goddess in their basic nature and choices . You never chose them , they chose you because of your choices . You just dont know his or her name yet . :smallbiggrin:

Not your problem you say ? Well the church just made it your problem bro . In theory you should not even get to that point . Those clerics should be denying you cure and raise dead services just so you get the message that something is up .

Dont forget to ask for your chosen Diety discount .

Pssst there is only one true Goddess and her name is Lurue .

[tadkins]

I agree that it'd be silly to be an actual atheist in a world where clerics and gods are actually out there doing stuff, and you can see their magic and whatnot. In most settings though you can acknowledge that the gods exist without swearing yourself to one. My complaint is that in this world you are literally forced to side with one and are punished for eternity if you don't.

"okay pick a god"
"but I don't like any of them"
"too bad pick one or u will suffer"
"ah c'mon that sucks, don't I get a choice?"
"no"
"...blegh, fine."
*quickly flips through the book of deities, eyerolling as its done*
"alright, Shar I guess 'cause she's kind of hot? let's go already"

[Fizban]

Ah, gotcha. Thanks for the info. I figured there might be some cool artifact or high level wizard trick (that folks on these forums are prone to inventing from time to time :D) a person can do to blow that thing up.
Well if your wizard is so high op they can personally murder all the gods that'd makes you the one in charge, seems like a decent first step. As before, "Ao" is basically the stand in for DM fiat, but presumably after making enough of a rumble that you get promoted to godhood yourself (killing deities in FR isn't necessarily a guarantee you'll take their job, but it does result in *someone* getting promoted if you keep killing them until the numbers are low enough that the more opportunistic deities can't take any more power/Ao decides there's too few gods hoarding the power) you could then negotiate your way into a new position of "god of the faithless," and institute your own solution for whatever cosmic problems the wall is supposed to solve.

Presumably this would entail being some sort of neutral party that either evenly divides or brokers the souls of the faithless, whose punishment for refusing to worship is having no say in their afterlife rather than being tortuously dissolved.

Directly messing with the wall just doesn't really work, because DnD has essentially no concrete soul magic with which to perform op tricks, and even if you did there's still be the gods just putting it back together. Infinite solars using infinite wishes could theoretically outpower a finite number of gods with finite actions with which to activate their divine abilities, but that relies on both chain-gating and an arbitrarily large supply of solars. Furthermore, the nature of gods in dnd (see Deities and Demigods) basically means that unless you've got the backing of another god of equal or greater power to the one you're trying to usurp, any greater god will see you coming weeks in advance. And being that the wall of the faithless was instituted by some of the most powerful gods, who can then call upon the assistance of the rest of the gods, well the only way you could pull anything off is if you can study up enough on the fluff behind all of them to prove that there's enough disagreement on the wall by the right gods to form a coalition intent on removing it. And then we're back to the beginning.

If infinite solars won't work (and you've got the right god backing you), epic spellcrafting would be the next bet, but again there's that lack of anything regarding concrete soul magic. All epic spells still have to go through the DM, and something that permanently usurps the wall of the faithless is going to require some serious ad hoc modifiers that they can just throw out. The best I think you could do is some sort of Mythal (see Lost Empires of Faerun), which is basically just a cheaper way of making permanent/automatic effects. A mythal that redirected incoming souls (to where?), say by duplicating a soul trapping spell that doesn't require limited components, would fix the problem. . . until someone dispelled it. Which could be done by any other sufficiently epic caster or god. So again, back to the beginning.

[DeTess]

Well if your wizard is so high op they can personally murder all the gods that'd makes you the one in charge, seems like a decent first step. As before, "Ao" is basically the stand in for DM fiat, but presumably after making enough of a rumble that you get promoted to godhood yourself (killing deities in FR isn't necessarily a guarantee you'll take their job, but it does result in *someone* getting promoted if you keep killing them until the numbers are low enough that the more opportunistic deities can't take any more power/Ao decides there's too few gods hoarding the power) you could then negotiate your way into a new position of "god of the faithless," and institute your own solution for whatever cosmic problems the wall is supposed to solve.

Presumably this would entail being some sort of neutral party that either evenly divides or brokers the souls of the faithless, whose punishment for refusing to worship is having no say in their afterlife rather than being tortuously dissolved.

I mean, you could probably design a pretty epic campaign around the idea of a party wanting to save the souls of the faithless by becoming the deity of the faithless. If I knew more about teh forgottenr realms, I might even decide to run this myself.

[Mordaedil]

I agree that it'd be silly to be an actual atheist in a world where clerics and gods are actually out there doing stuff, and you can see their magic and whatnot. In most settings though you can acknowledge that the gods exist without swearing yourself to one. My complaint is that in this world you are literally forced to side with one and are punished for eternity if you don't.

Well, the funny thing is that there isn't any rule against being fickle with your deity choice as long as you are not a cleric or paladin. A lot of farmers and the like worship different deities depending on the season and even sometimes recent events, like someone passing away calls for the worship of the god of death when someone died etc.

It does come to that some people pick one specific one they feel more strongly about, which is how they avoid eternal damnation.

[ayvango]

Go to your local Athar lodge and consult with them. They should be pretty knowledgeable in such questions.

[noob]

kelemvor is currently responsible for the wall because he once decided "enough of that wall I am going to break it and then give a correct afterlife to all the people from the wall and to all the next faithless" then ao and the other evil gods(ao being the most evil one because true neutral is by far the most evil alignment which ever existed in any game)
told him that it was wrong because people would stop worshiping the evil gods and then forced him to manage the wall of the faithless after they repaired it(before that he was lawful good now he is lawful neutral)

So the answer is: yes the wall of the faithless can be destroyed and probably will be destroyed again by kelemvor the day where someone get rid of ao.

[DEMON]

It is my understanding that Kelemvor himself can tear down The Wall, just like Myrkul brought it into existence.

As such, anyone who took over the portfolio of Death and the Fugue Plane, should be able to do with it as he sees fit.

[Oracle71]

You know, I remember one of the old 2E sourcebooks that said that Asmodeus, the Overlord of the 9 Hells, gained power from unbelief. Every being in the multiverse that rejects the gods ends up having their soul consumed in an excruciatingly long and painful process by the Overlord. Perhaps the Wall is part of an ancient plan to gain soul power. What if, eons ago, Asmodeus negotiated with the death god to allow devils to negotiate with the newly dead souls to turn to Baator, "to counter the demons sneaking in and stealing those souls away to the Abyss." To Asmo, getting the souls to pledge themselves gives him a lot of soul power, but if they reject him, he still gets a lesser amount of power from their rejection. The Wall itself is a construct designed to convince the soul shells of the new dead to seek an...alternative.

[hamishspence]

3.0 Deities & Demigods suggests that the Fugue Plane itself, not the Wall, is the place for "those who none of the gods are prepared to accept - souls simply hang around there until scooped up by some demonic or devilish raiding party.

The Wall is restricted to those who "actively opposed worship of the gods".

So a "regular agnostic" wouldn't get in, but an Athar who came to the Realms from Sigil and who actively campaigned against worship within Faerun, would.

[Naanomi]

Kelemvor did take down the Wall for a while... it led to a lot of people basically killing themselves to get to a joyous afterlife they knew they had coming now that the Gods didn't have a say in it anymore; and disproportionately effected the Good Gods compared to the Evil. He put it back into place when he wasn't able to come up with a reasonable alternative before the whole system suffered irrevocably.

Do note that children don't suffer the Wall when they die, since all children's souls end up in the bottom layer of Celestia when they die. Also note that the wall destroys individuality and consciousness, so it is more about personal oblivion than eternal torture in the Lower Planes sense.

It is also a bit harder to be declared 'faithless' than one might think...
"The average Faerunian lives long enough to worship (or serve through one's actions) one deity above all others - though in many cases, which deity a given person has served most might not be clear to a dying mortal or anyone else. If a mortal dies before finishing a mission or a task for a particular deity and it's a matter he felt strongly about in life, he could be sent back by that deity, reborn as another mortal, to try to complete that task. Otherwise, he ends up in the afterlife serving the deity most appropriate to his moral and ethical outlook. Only those who repudiate the gods (or who as a result of their actions are renounced by their gods), despoil altars and frustrate the clerical aims of any deity, or never pray or engage in any form of deliberate worship will qualify as either Faithless or False."

Interestingly, in Never Winter Nights 2, you *can* destroy the Wall... it is considered a highly Chaotic act by the game system. The repercussions, or lack thereof, for its absence are not really explored.

"Zale Protelyus!"

The flame spun on Kelemvor's sword, then stopped wailing and kneeled on the steaming blade.

"Lord Death."

"Zale Protelyus, why did you allow your foe to drag you into this fissure? Why did you cling to your sword when you could have let go and saved yourself?"

"To... stop... the... murderer!" Zale's words seemed to come with great effort and pain.

"But when you saw that you would die and fail anyway, still you held on. Why?"

"Nothing to fear... in death." Zale kept his blazing head bowed toward the sword. "Brave man in life... sure to receive reward in death."

"But you are Faithless! Who will reward you?"

For the first time, Zale raised his fiery head. "You... Lord Kelemvor! Trust your justice... before any god... who demands flattery... and offerings."

It was then that Kelemvor perceived the infinite cunning of the One and All. To win Faerun for himself, Cyric had only to step aside and do nothing. Lady Magic would do half his work, denying the Weave to any force that harmed her beloved mortals, and Talos the Destroyer and the Battle Lord Tempus and Shar the Nightbringer would grow weak and start losing worshipers. Kelemvor would do the rest, treating the spirits of the noble and compassionate with such kindness that many would turn from their gods and trust to his justice instead.

But most critical was this: the brave and courageous would lose their fear of death and sacrifice themselves in foolish causes, as Zale had done. Faerun would be left to the cowardly and the corrupt. And when this was so-when all the other gods had grown weak through the compassion of Kelemvor and Mystra-then would the One rouse himself from his "madness" and call the wicked to his worship, and then would he drive all the other gods from his world.

All this Kelemvor perceived, and he saw that it was happening just as Cyric had planned. Still, he refused to think he had been doing the One's work. In his folly, he believed that every man strove for bravery and nobility, and he failed to understand that shielding the helpless encouraged laziness and dependence, and that treating the dead with compassion only made life all the more unbearable.

[Pugwampy]

My complaint is that in this world you are literally forced to side with one and are punished for eternity if you don't.


Its just afterlife insurance bro . You are not special , Nobody owes you anything . You have to pay premiums like the rest of us loser mortals . Unless you know how to become a lich , you are going to die bro . Thats one of DND life's absolutes .

Its not punishment its divine capitalism . You reaped what you sowed . You did not pay rent and now you being evicted . You chose to withhold that whatever useless power within you that you yourself cannot really use but what fuels their super powers and their very life . Everytime you say "I dont believe in fairies , a fairy dies" ...............why do you wanna kill fairies ? Are you that kind of a person ? Why should any God tolerate a fairy murdering scum like you trying to live RENT FREE in the sweet afterlife which is their property. :smallbiggrin:

Yes you can still be a loving forgiving , good entity while still kicking bums out of your pretty garden .

NEO you are a walking battery . Thats your purpose . You are plugging into some Goddess now or the "Wall" later on . :smallbiggrin:

[Scots Dragon]

Honestly the Wall of the Faithless makes no sense with the Realms as originally described in the Grey Box, which specified genuine polytheistic worship and listed atheism as a valid option, and it's easy enough to just ignore it. Those who do not actively worship a deity wind up in the plane matching their alignment, or with a deity whose nature best matches them otherwise.

A wizard winds up with Azuth or Mystra for embodying their principles, for instance despite taking a pretty polytheistic stance. A great warrior who cares little for worship would still end up being claimed by Tempus. Someone who dislikes the gods entirely or does not match with a specific deity's outlook would wind up simply going to the plane of their alignment.

The Forgotten Realms does not need some kind of special hell for atheists.

[Pugwampy]

The Forgotten Realms does not need some kind of special hell for atheists.

God Murderer , filthy KILLER , not atheist . Your stubborn nature , is affecting higher beings and the very cosmos in a negative context . You are doing HARM !!!

A honey bee that refuses to make honey . You are affecting your hive and withholding food for the larva . Your new born sisters are hungry . And although you will never understand this concept because of your short lifespan and insect size brain , A bee farmer is losing profits .

Do yo allow bugs to crawl into your wallet and eat your money ?

[Lapak]

Honestly the Wall of the Faithless makes no sense with the Realms as originally described in the Grey Box, which specified genuine polytheistic worship and listed atheism as a valid option, and it's easy enough to just ignore it. Those who do not actively worship a deity wind up in the plane matching their alignmuent, or with a deity whose nature best matches them otherwise.
...
The Forgotten Realms does not need some kind of special hell for atheists.
It didn’t in the original Grey Box because that was pre-Time of Troubles and thus pre-“Ao explicitly ties each god’s power to the faith of its worshippers.”

After that, the need was as described above: when the Faithless get a behavior-appropriate afterlife only the wicked need to be Faithful. If only the wicked need to be Faithful, the evil gods will grow in power and become ascendant. Then everyone loses.

Now, I don’t actually buy that - in a setting where gods demonstrably exist and grant miracles to their followers, you are going to have a minimal rate of atheism. There’s plenty of affirmative pressure to worship Chauntea, you don’t need the stick of the Wall to drive people to it.

[DEMON]

God Murderer, filthy KILLER, not atheist.

That's silly. By that logic, every single believer worshiper is killing all the other gods in all the pantheons out there minus the single one they do lend their spiritual energy to.

This racket of "worship someone or else" can do just as much harm to any and all the deities, by losing worshipers to other deities, as does losing them to atheism (read non-worship in this context, not actual disbelief of the existence of gods).

[Pugwampy]

Anyhoo , I dont think Atheists last very long in their beliefs . Take a tree logging work accident and ended up with you getting your favorite parts chopped off .

Perhaps a kind cleric stopped your bleeding for free , but i am pretty sure you will need to sign up to get get your frank and beans grown back .

Who would be so dedicated in their unbelief as to refuse that ?

[Karmea]

Or, you know, just pay for the cleric's services with gold/magic items/whatever.


“Ao explicitly ties each god’s power to the faith of its worshippers.”

...You mean like in Greyhawk or pretty much any other Great Wheel setting? Yeaah, if the gods need to tangle torture in front of people to gain worship, they've got far bigger problems.

I've always thought that an epic campaign to get rid of the Wall is a great idea. I'm personally in favour of replacing the mortal souls in the Wall with the gods who advocated for it (especially if the Wall has some function other than just being a huge landmark of the pettiness and unworthiness of any gods in FR). A sort of delicious dramatic irony. But it would definitely be a high-level campaign and not a quick side quest.

[Millstone85]

Kelemvor did take down the Wall for a while... it led to a lot of people basically killing themselves to get to a joyous afterlife they knew they had coming now that the Gods didn't have a say in it anymore; and disproportionately effected the Good Gods compared to the Evil. He put it back into place when he wasn't able to come up with a reasonable alternative before the whole system suffered irrevocably.

[...]

Here are the relevant novel quotes I could find if people are interestedHaven't read the novels, but here is what puzzles me in this excerpt.


"But you are Faithless! Who will reward you?"

For the first time, Zale raised his fiery head. "You... Lord Kelemvor! Trust your justice... before any god... who demands flattery... and offerings."How was this Zale fellow not regarded as a true Kelemvorite?

[hamishspence]

not raising a single word of praise to Kelemvor in life, maybe?

[Karmea]

You must remember, it's about kissing the gods' posteriors, not about being a good person/in line with their portfolios. See, FR is just and the novels are very logical. That's why you see good people going on suicidal quests en masse in Greyhawk, for example.

Yeah, the novels are really dumb.

[Florian]

Haven't read the novels, but here is what puzzles me in this excerpt.

How was this Zale fellow not regarded as a true Kelemvorite?

It basically says a lot about how the authors effed up the whole outer planes reward system from the get-go, mainly based on RL religious believes, I think.

Think of it: I live life in accordance to one of the outer planes/gods, then I find out that I missed an eternity of massages and free BJs for instead being reborn as some sort of fat maggot and being tortured for a while? What kind of reward is that? That is what is fundamentally wrong with the Great Wheel and the later FR World Tree. (Golarion managed that smoother. The "you" dies, only core energy remains and merges with the outer plane)

So, yes, the novel and evolving meta-plot is pure ox manure because of that. Better die False then go to Hell?

[Pugwampy]

Or, you know, just pay for the cleric's services with gold/magic items/whatever.

Yeaah, if the gods need to tangle torture in front of people to gain worship, they've got far bigger problems.



I am sure they will take your gold and magic goodies too .........but first you sign up.

Cleric can use your gold but the goddess who gave her super powers cannot . Something a bit more intangible is wanted more than your common money.

I am pretty sure the best sales pitch for worship is all medical benefits . Join us and stay healthy .

Gods don't need you , you need them , you ol sicko .

Your star jammer is going to crash . If nothing changes your death is a certain.
the dwarven artificers start handing out parachutes . Would you refuse a parachute ?

[Fizban]

Interestingly, in Never Winter Nights 2, you *can* destroy the Wall... it is considered a highly Chaotic act by the game system. The repercussions, or lack thereof, for its absence are not really explored.
I don't remember that being an option- you get the choice of accepting your fate or stealing back your soul and passing on the curse, not the end of the wall itself.

But most critical was this: the brave and courageous would lose their fear of death and sacrifice themselves in foolish causes, as Zale had done. Faerun would be left to the cowardly and the corrupt. And when this was so-when all the other gods had grown weak through the compassion of Kelemvor and Mystra-then would the One rouse himself from his "madness" and call the wicked to his worship, and then would he drive all the other gods from his world.
Except this doesn't contradict anything? The Good already get rewarded more for dying than living to continue the fight wall or no wall, and the Evil already have the most reason to cling to mortal lives. The only catch is that the Evil here are also dumb enough to worship the Evil god, rather than reject all gods while being evil and thus earn the mercy of the faithless, while it is assumed that Good will actively reject the gods on general principle in spite of the concrete benefits they continue to offer.*

The Time of Troubles, IIRC, happened because Ao decided the gods weren't being godly enough, so they're booted down the mortal level in order to get some perspective (and get some of them killed so the writers could shake up the pantheon). So it sounds like after they got re-godified and directly tied to worshipers, the wall also went up. But the wall only punishes a very specific minority that actively go against worshiping the gods. Basically just to spite them, because the gods didn't used to be tied to moral worship.

Indeed, the more you examine it, the more obvious it seems that all the justifications for the wall were written to justify the wall because they wanted a wall. Gotta have some cosmic injustice and a tortured god of the dead who hates his job, right?

*And yeah, seriously, that line is a blatant declaration of loyalty to Kelemvor, not faithlessness. What they're really saying is that if the god of the dead is merciful, all mortals will worship the god of the dead, and the other gods with wither away. Except the ones who don't, which we have arbitrarily decided are only the evil ones and none of the good ones.

[DEMON]

I am sure they will take your gold and magic goodies too .........but first you sign up.

Cleric can use your gold but the goddess who gave her super powers cannot . Something a bit more intangible is wanted more than your common money.

I am pretty sure the best sales pitch for worship is all medical benefits . Join us and stay healthy .

Gods don't need you , you need them , you ol sicko .

Your star jammer is going to crash . If nothing changes your death is a certain.
the dwarven artificers start handing out parachutes . Would you refuse a parachute ?

Are you suggesting that (a cleric of) Ilmater or Sharindlar would refuse to heal you, unless you were willing to join their religion?

[Naanomi]

It didn’t in the original Grey Box because that was pre-Time of Troubles and thus pre-“Ao explicitly ties each god’s power to the faith of its worshippers.”
Though the original creator of the wall made it just so people would fear Death even if they didn't follow the Gods who would punish them... because the Fear of Death was his main thing. It took on other roles post-Time of Troubles, but that wasn't the original intent

Note he didn't worship Kelemvor as a lord of death, just as the person who would reward him for valor (which he wasn't the God of)... so he may have paid lip service to the (at the time very new God) Kelemvor, but didn't worship him in the context of his portfolio.

Destroying the Wall... it was how you got the Spiritual Evisceration power. It is vague on if you destroy the whole thing or just part of it, though Kelemvor does tell you that by doing so you have 'destroyed part of the covenant between gods and mortals'

[Psyren]

I agree that it'd be silly to be an actual atheist in a world where clerics and gods are actually out there doing stuff, and you can see their magic and whatnot. In most settings though you can acknowledge that the gods exist without swearing yourself to one. My complaint is that in this world you are literally forced to side with one and are punished for eternity if you don't.

"okay pick a god"
"but I don't like any of them"
"too bad pick one or u will suffer"
"ah c'mon that sucks, don't I get a choice?"
"no"
"...blegh, fine."
*quickly flips through the book of deities, eyerolling as its done*
"alright, Shar I guess 'cause she's kind of hot? let's go already"

Yep, it does suck and it's one of the most controversial elements of FR. So your choices are to convince Ao to change it (or depose him somehow), deal with it and just pick the best deity you can (even a very minor one can be a patron after all), or play in a more sensible setting.


It is my understanding that Kelemvor himself can tear down The Wall, just like Myrkul brought it into existence.

As such, anyone who took over the portfolio of Death and the Fugue Plane, should be able to do with it as he sees fit.

Yeah, and Mystra can rip up the Weave if she wants, too. That doesn't make it a good idea (for themselves at the very least.) I'm pretty sure they would cease to exist if they tried this kind of thing - and even if they did survive, daddy would be pretty ticked off.

[DEMON]

Yeah, and Mystra can rip up the Weave if she wants, too. That doesn't make it a good idea (for themselves at the very least.) I'm pretty sure they would cease to exist if they tried this kind of thing - and even if they did survive, daddy would be pretty ticked off.

First of all, I voiced nothing with regards to it being a good or a bad idea. I answered the OP's question whether it was possible to destroy The Wall.

Secondly, apples and oranges. The Weave has a vastly different role in Mystra's portfolio than The Wall has is Kelemvor's.

Also, the destruction of the latter does not kill the related god. And who knows what ticks daddy off these days, anyways.

[Psyren]

First of all, I voiced nothing with regards to it being a good or a bad idea. I answered the OP's question whether it was possible to destroy The Wall.

I apologize if my post came off as pejorative, that wasn't my intent. I was merely pointing out that Kelemvor is on record as hating the Wall, but there's a very good reason (under the current canon anyway) why he hasn't abolished it.



Secondly, apples and oranges. The Weave has a vastly different role in Mystra's portfolio than The Wall has is Kelemvor's.

Also, the destruction of the latter does not kill the related god. And who knows what ticks daddy off these days, anyways.

I think it's still a good analogy. Just as Mystra can't pick and choose who can access the weave (e.g. she can't deny its use to followers of Shar, Cyric or Talos), so too can't Kelemvor overlook people who die without a patron.

I'm fairly certain not upholding the Wall would indeed result in his destruction.

[DEMON]

I apologize if my post came off as pejorative, that wasn't my intent.

No worries. :smallsmile:


I think it's still a good analogy. Just as Mystra can't pick and choose who can access the weave (e.g. she can't deny its use to followers of Shar, Cyric or Talos), so too can't Kelemvor overlook people who die without a patron.

I haven't read the particular novel, that was discussed above, but from what I understand, both of these these gods actually did the very same thing you mention - Mystra favored the good spellcasters and Kelemvor judged the False and the Faithless differently, sparing them the punishment of The Wall.

Of course it didn't last, but the reasons (from what I can tell, again not reading the actual book) behind this not working are pretty illogical, really.

But really, while the Weave and Mystra are connected in such a way that they cannot exist without one another, The Wall is just a tool for punishment upon a subset of spirits of the dead. Designing a different sort of fate for these souls, one that does not necessarily unbalance the pantheons, would allow the god to function without it. Just like Jergal when he was ruling over that portfolio (and plane).

[Psyren]

I haven't read the particular novel, that was discussed above, but from what I understand, both of these these gods actually did the very same thing you mention - Mystra favored the good spellcasters and Kelemvor judged the False and the Faithless differently, sparing them the punishment of The Wall.

Of course it didn't last, but the reasons (from what I can tell, again not reading the actual book) behind this not working are pretty illogical, really.

My point was less that abandoning these duties would cause those two deities to divide by zero and cease to exist immediately; rather, they did successfully start to do this as you rightly stated, but they quickly realized continuing down this path would be a Very Bad Idea for their plans to continue existing long-term.



But really, while the Weave and Mystra are connected in such a way that they cannot exist without one another, The Wall is just a tool for punishment upon a subset of spirits of the dead. Designing a different sort of fate for these souls, one that does not necessarily unbalance the pantheons, would allow the god to function without it. Just like Jergal when he was ruling over that portfolio (and plane).

Indeed but now I'm curious - before the Wall, what did Jergal do with Faithless? One could argue that there simply weren't any (Faerun had a much smaller population during his tenure IIRC) but that seems like a cop-out. Does anyone know?

[Keltest]

My point was less that abandoning these duties would cause those two deities to divide by zero and cease to exist immediately; rather, they did successfully start to do this as you rightly stated, but they quickly realized continuing down this path would be a Very Bad Idea for their plans to continue existing long-term.

As far as I understand, the only reason they stopped is because all the other gods confronted them and said "we don't like this, quit it or we'll all fight you."

Kelemvor I think was legitimately causing the good mortals to take more lethal risks than they otherwise would have (though given that 99% of the time a mortal goes to their deity's plane anyway, I cant imagine that the actual number of people doing that would have affected anything) but Mystra was fully within her rights and power to deny magic to anyone she didn't like.

[Naanomi]

Jergal was an amazingly powerful and feared God, he didn’t need something artificial to make people fear death the way Myrkul did. Once Myrkul built it, though, it became sort of irreplaceable. It is implied that Jergal just devoured the souls of the False and Faithless, or left them to whither in his Realm. Presumably demons/devils got to some as well.

And for people that feel the excuse was illogical, it is implied that Cyric is active in fooling Good people into the ‘just go die in a blaze of glory’ plan; it wasn’t necessarily something that people came up with on their own.

[Anymage]

In-universe, the overgod is a petty jerkoff and people are stupid enough that good people will stop supporting powerful forces of good when the threat of torture is removed. You can try to rail against it, but said overgod is DM fiat level strong and people grabbing the idiot ball is a place where in-universe characters have little influence over out-of-universe writers.

Out of universe, the wall being dumb and offensive is one of those things that most players know but that the writers have dug their heels in over. Panthiesm as "atheism light" would probably make sense if your DM was reasonable. (Most people in real world societies that believed in multiple gods gave prayer to most of them, in some cases even adopting the gods of defeated foes as a way to avoid pissing off any potentially unmet gods. Not especially devout people in a setting where gods obviously exist could give prayer to whoever is relevant for the task at hand, while otherwise going on with their lives.) But that requires people at the table to buy into the idea that the wall is stupid and should be replaced by something better.

[Psyren]

Jergal was an amazingly powerful and feared God, he didn’t need something artificial to make people fear death the way Myrkul did. Once Myrkul built it, though, it became sort of irreplaceable. It is implied that Jergal just devoured the souls of the False and Faithless, or left them to whither in his Realm. Presumably demons/devils got to some as well.

This just raises further questions!

Is getting devoured by Jergal painless? Do gods digest? Which outcome provides more metaphysical benefit for the setting as a whole? Is devouring souls as feasible now as it was in Jergal's day, or was the Wall partly a necessity?

[Naanomi]

AO is a hard character to evaluate morally. Generally, his concerns are so much ‘higher’ than mortal concerns, it isn’t really appropriate to evaluate him as ‘good’ or ‘evil’ even in the non-alignment sense. He has at least one layer of ‘boss’ above him cosmically who he reports to as well to consider.


Is getting devoured by Jergal painless? Do gods digest? Which outcome provides more metaphysical benefit for the setting as a whole? Is devouring souls as feasible now as it was in Jergal's day, or was the Wall partly a necessity?
There isn’t a clear answer, but I suspect it was the same in the end as the Wall... brief pain followed by loss of self and oblivion... for no gain except to dispose of dead who have nowhere else to go

[Nifft]

AO is a hard character to evaluate morally. Generally, his concerns are so much ‘higher’ than mortal concerns, it isn’t really appropriate to evaluate him as ‘good’ or ‘evil’ even in the non-alignment sense. He has at least one layer of ‘boss’ above him cosmically who he reports to as well to consider.

FR is the place where every plot-railroad is situated on another, larger plot-railroad.

It's rails all the way down.

[Psyren]

FR is the place where every plot-railroad is situated on another, larger plot-railroad.

It's rails all the way down.

Basically, yeah.


@ Jergal: I'm not convinced that his method of dealing with Faithless (if indeed any existed in his day) was all that much better than the Wall. Just because the latter is more thoroughly documented and explored does not mean it was actually preferable, at least imo.

Which is not to say that the Wall is better, just that it's a crapsack setting all around if you don't like any of the deities in particular.

[Anymage]

AO is a hard character to evaluate morally. Generally, his concerns are so much ‘higher’ than mortal concerns, it isn’t really appropriate to evaluate him as ‘good’ or ‘evil’ even in the non-alignment sense. He has at least one layer of ‘boss’ above him cosmically who he reports to as well to consider.

One of the big problems is that beings who are claimed to be staggeringly smarter than any human, who have perspectives far beyond our tiny mortal minds, are still written by authors who won't necessarily be that smart. Sometimes, they're written by whatever writer happens to be commissioned for a given book, making these supreme entities come down with ADD and schizophrenia. Their "supreme plans" wind up looking rather simple and small scale.

(The exceptions being things like the Lady of Pain, who is intentionally left inscrutable to keep people from mucking her up. That requires a high level commitment to never using them as more than a setting detail, though.)

Regardless, it seems like a pointlessly fine detail to distinguish "Ao looks like a real jerkface when you look at the rules that have been set up in-universe" and "the writers really screwed the pooch, looking at this as a player".

[Naanomi]

I like to think of it more like ‘no one has any real comprehension why Ao does what he does, because the scale of his concerns are incomprehensible to even divine scale’; but you are right it often appears as randomness or general a-holishness

[Zanos]

I'm fairly certain that patronless souls were hunted down and consumed by demons and devil's pre-wall. They ocassionaly stage raids on the wall to rip souls free and devour them.

I'm an atheist in irl as well and have no problem with the wall. In FR the gods provably and literally created the material plane and filled it with life, and maintain all the facets that allow existence as it's known to continue. All you owe them in exchange for the afterlife of your preference is a bit of worship. That's a pretty good deal.

[tadkins]

Just woke up and caught up with this thread. Thank you everyone for your responses. You've given me some new perspectives.

I still don't really like the idea of the Wall. From the sounds of it, the gods should be the ones kissing our butts if they need worshippers just to survive. :D

I mean, I can understand why the Wall would exist in this setting, but it still seems pretty messed up. {Scrubbed}

[Sian]

It's not that it aren't controversial in some way ... its more that it's at least as controversial to get a prissy fit about the setting for not being friendly about that their characters aren't going to be popular from spouting flat-earth atheist by actively denouncing the existence of what is in front of their eyes.

[Keltest]

It's not that it aren't controversial in some way ... its more that it's at least as controversial to get a prissy fit about the setting for not being friendly about that their characters aren't going to be popular from spouting flat-earth atheist by actively denouncing the existence of what is in front of their eyes.

If you literally had to be actively atheist, it wouldn't be as bad, but it also affects anybody who doesn't explicitly swear themselves to a specific god (in some cases, this means swearing yourself to an evil god because none of the good gods hold domain over what you do for a living), and in one novel Cyric actually tortures Mystra's head priest into insanity and affects his perception so that he perceived a demon instead of mystra, even after he died. This was enough to get him sent to the Wall, even though he hadn't even renounced the existence of mystra specifically, just that he thought someone was pretending to be her, and that it was artificially forced on him by another god.

[Nifft]

It's not that it aren't controversial in some way ... its more that it's at least as controversial to get a prissy fit about the setting for not being friendly about that their characters aren't going to be popular from spouting flat-earth atheist by actively denouncing the existence of what is in front of their eyes.

I don't think that atheist-PC-players are the only people who think the Wall of the Faithless is dumb.

You can mock the idea of PCs who don't believe in magic when there is very clearly magic right in front of them, but it's a bit of a straw-man.


Here are two very obvious things which aren't atheism:

- A community or a character which supports & values multiple different gods.

- A character who knows the gods are real, but doesn't think any of them are worthy of veneration because they're all jerks.

[tadkins]

- A character who knows the gods are real, but doesn't think any of them are worthy of veneration because they're all jerks.

Where I pretty much stand. xD

[Naanomi]

Where I pretty much stand. xD
So abandon Toril, head to the Planes, and join the Athar. They are always recruiting

[Zanos]

"All the gods are jerks" is pretty stupid, there are a lot of gods in Faerun.

I seem to recall several discrete pantheon of several deities as well.

Just seems childish to me, honestly. Gods maintain portfolios for humans, humans provide worship that literally costs nothing, and even get their pick from several dozen reasonably flexible philosophies. If you don't want to be part of the system that literally keeps the world turning, you get screwed, but at least arent turned into a demon.

[tadkins]

So abandon Toril, head to the Planes, and join the Athar. They are always recruiting

Just finished reading about them. Sounds like my kind of people (even if their PrCs aren't really geared toward wizards).


there are a lot of gods in Faerun.

and they're all jerks!

I don't think you can name a single deity that doesn't see themselves as better than us, and wouldn't willingly toy with us "lowly mortals" given the opportunity.

The fact that the Wall exists as a "worship us or suffer" ultimatum kind of proves this imo.

[DEMON]

you get screwed, but at least arent turned into a demon.

Maybe. Unless you get removed from The Wall and dragged into the Abyss.

Though it's at least somewhat questionable if it's the worse of the two fates.

[Naanomi]

I don't think you can name a single deity that doesn't see themselves as better than us, and wouldn't willingly toy with us "lowly mortals" given the opportunity.
In the Faerunian pantheon? Illmater springs to mind, and maybe Eldath. Sharindlar, Naralis, Cyrrollalee in the non-Human Pantheons are pretty reasonable.

In the ‘doesnt care either way about mortals and just do their jobs’, the four elemental Gods (worshipped all over the Planes not just Faerun) are good examples

[Psyren]

humans provide worship that literally costs nothing,

There is definitely a cost - whichever patron you pick, you have to live your entire life in a way that they like, or else realize that you can't/won't with enough time to formally switch. Otherwise, your stuck as one of the False - torture isn't guaranteed there like it is for being in the Wall, but it definitely happens. Worse, as one of the False you are vulnerable to getting picked up by demons and devils - a fate even the Faithless don't have to worry about.

[Naanomi]

There is definitely a cost - whichever patron you pick, you have to live your entire life in a way that they like, or else realize that you can't/won't with enough time to formally switch. Otherwise, your stuck as one of the False - torture isn't guaranteed there like it is for being in the Wall, but it definitely happens. Worse, as one of the False you are vulnerable to getting picked up by demons and devils - a fate even the Faithless don't have to worry about.
It takes a lot more than that to be declared False, you have to be pretty intentional about the whole thing.

[ngilop]

I agree that it'd be silly to be an actual atheist in a world where clerics and gods are actually out there doing stuff, and you can see their magic and whatnot. In most settings though you can acknowledge that the gods exist without swearing yourself to one. My complaint is that in this world you are literally forced to side with one and are punished for eternity if you don't.

"okay pick a god"
"but I don't like any of them"
"too bad pick one or u will suffer"
"ah c'mon that sucks, don't I get a choice?"
"no"
"...blegh, fine."
*quickly flips through the book of deities, eyerolling as its done*
"alright, Shar I guess 'cause she's kind of hot? let's go already"

My only question about this proposed scenario is that you are stating that in the literal thousands of forgottten realms deities that there is not a single one that your character would believe in and say 'yeah this one is good to toss a prayer to every once in a while'?

But the more important issue here is, you are bringing your real life beliefs into a game and much like Flroian said earlier, thats not really a thing most people do to play games, they do it to escape.

My guess is you most likely younger and need to realize that unlike in the real world where the existence of omnipresent, omnipotent, and omnificent being(s) do or do not exist. In D&D and those beings DO and it is a fact of the system itself.

I would advise you to take the game as is, a game, and try not to shove your real life hates onto it, and just have fun.

[Nifft]

My only question about this proposed scenario is that you are stating that in the literal thousands of forgottten realms deities that there is not a single one that your character would believe in and say 'yeah this one is good to toss a prayer to every once in a while'? Then you've missed the point of the setting's metaphysics.

You're not throwing Tymora a coin every now and then, you're pledging yourself eternally to the judgment of one specific god, and these gods are all currently re-enacting high school clique drama (with swords and magic).

If you were allowed to treat a group of gods as a pantheon, and throw each constituent divinity a coin every now and then (as appropriate for your current circumstances), then you'd have a much more sensible setting -- but that setting would not be the Forgotten Realms, since FR actively punishes pantheonic worship.



I would advise you to take the game as is, a game, and try not to shove your real life hates onto it, and just have fun. It's weird how you can accuse someone of militant hateful atheism while quoting a post which says atheism would be silly.

What kind of Bluff check was it to fool yourself into thinking he said the opposite?

And what skill opposes that check?

[tadkins]

My only question about this proposed scenario is that you are stating that in the literal thousands of forgottten realms deities that there is not a single one that your character would believe in and say 'yeah this one is good to toss a prayer to every once in a while'?


As you might tell from my sig and avatar I have a love for mining, gems, and just the earth and geology in general.

{Scrubbed}



My guess is you most likely younger

nope, just a maladjusted and weird 34 year old

lol



I would advise you to take the game as is, a game, and try not to shove your real life hates onto it, and just have fun.

Kind of the point though isn't it? No one has fun when they're forced into a situation where they don't want to be in.

[Zanos]

and they're all jerks!

I don't think you can name a single deity that doesn't see themselves as better than us, and wouldn't willingly toy with us "lowly mortals" given the opportunity.
Pick any deity that isn't chaotic or evil, really. Even some of the Evil ones are okay if you're into what they are. Chauntea, Waukeen, and Tyr are all good choices for normal people.

But that's besides the point, deities are quite literally better than us. They are divine. If you're actually arrogant enough to think you're superior you better be packing a couple of Epic levels and some anti-God specific ****, because gods have abilities that can instantly destroy mortals with no save.



The fact that the Wall exists as a "worship us or suffer" ultimatum kind of proves this imo.
None of the living deities had a hand in creating the wall. An Evil god erected it and it mortared itself as a facet of the universe. Destroying it is close to impossible.

There's a decent book about how Kelemvor has to sublimate his humanity and become LN in order to properly perform his duties, which occasionally include condemning people to the wall or some of the less pleasant afterlives.


Maybe. Unless you get removed from The Wall and dragged into the Abyss.

Though it's at least somewhat questionable if it's the worse of the two fates.
These are relatively uncommon as I understand it, the City of Death is a divine realm and assaulting is not trivial, even for powerful outsiders.

I'd argue that being turned into an Evil outsider is a worse fate, both involve the complete destruction of your identity and incredible pain, but the later also turns you into a blight on the planes. So everyone loses, not just you.


There is definitely a cost - whichever patron you pick, you have to live your entire life in a way that they like, or else realize that you can't/won't with enough time to formally switch. Otherwise, your stuck as one of the False - torture isn't guaranteed there like it is for being in the Wall, but it definitely happens. Worse, as one of the False you are vulnerable to getting picked up by demons and devils - a fate even the Faithless don't have to worry about.
As mentioned being declared false requires significantly more than that, and dogma isnt nearly as strict as you're suggesting. Most deities teachings can be sumed up in three sentences or less. Remember this is something that the vast majority of ignorant village peasants manage just fine. And even FR clerics can be within a step of their deities alignments in most cases.

[Roland St. Jude]

Sheriff: Discussion of the fictional religions in FR is fine, but bringing in real world religious references is not. Please avoid real world religion on this Forum.