Millstone85
2019-02-16, 10:07 AM
I am playing Planescape: Torment for the first time. Cool game so far, though I still prefer Baldur's Gate. Anyhow, I recently made it past a sensate's lecture on how the afterlife works. And wow, petitioners have it even worse than I thought!
First, a departed soul loses all memories of its life, which remain in the Astral as a "memory core" pretty much only so resurrection spells can bring both the soul and the memories back. That bites.
Then, depending on the soul's beliefs during its life, it reaches either the realm of a deity or the outer plane that matches the soul's alignment (or both, if the deity's realm happens to be in that outer plane). There, a new body forms that resembles the one the soul had in life, with changes brought by the plane. Alright.
But here's the second kicker. The resulting petitioner is effectively more mortal than they were in life! Not only can they die in all the same ways as before, such as a dagger to the guts, but they henceforth can't ever be brought back to life or afterlife. They are dead, afterdead, done and gone. Presumably, they merge with the plane, something you can have the main character point out doesn't sound all that different from oblivion.
5e lore.
From the DMG, we know that the deity-or-alignment rule is still in place. Again, fine by me. Forgotten Realms is harder on the godless, but that's a Realmspace-specific problem.
The DMG, the MM and MToF make memory wipe a thing for souls that get transformed into fiends, typically a LE lemure, NE larva, or CE manes. Instead of memory cores floating in the Astral, we get memory sediment at the bottom of the River Styx, although that connection is only made clear for devils.
Other relevant pieces of lore:
From the DMG, the MM, and VGtM, we know that the souls of goblinoids and orcs battle each other in Acheron, at the calls of the evil gods Maglubiyet and Gruumsh.
In MToF, we learn that most elven souls are stuck in a reincarnation cycle that brings them back and forth between Arborea (specifically Arvandor) and the Material.
The DMG states that Arcadian dwarves and Arborean elves have the celestial type.
Also from the DMG, "one can imagine the perceptible part of the Outer Planes as a border region, while extensive spiritual regions lie beyond ordinary sensory experience".
My take.
I would give petitioners a break in the following ways:
Petitioners of the Upper and Lower Planes get either the celestial of fiend type, as appropriate.
Petitioners get to keep their memories unless they become devils, demons or larvae.
They all have lemure-style regeneration, i.e. they reform on their plane whether they die there or elsewhere, unless specific holy/unholy conditions are met.
It can take them days, weeks, months or years to reappear. Sometimes, they are considered to have permanently merged with the plane, which just means they have moved past its Material-like surface.
Some planes hasten this outcome, such as psychedelic Elysium or depressive Hades. Others have petitioners work toward it, as with the climb of Mount Celestia. And others delay it as much as possible, like Acheron or Ysgard.
First, a departed soul loses all memories of its life, which remain in the Astral as a "memory core" pretty much only so resurrection spells can bring both the soul and the memories back. That bites.
Then, depending on the soul's beliefs during its life, it reaches either the realm of a deity or the outer plane that matches the soul's alignment (or both, if the deity's realm happens to be in that outer plane). There, a new body forms that resembles the one the soul had in life, with changes brought by the plane. Alright.
But here's the second kicker. The resulting petitioner is effectively more mortal than they were in life! Not only can they die in all the same ways as before, such as a dagger to the guts, but they henceforth can't ever be brought back to life or afterlife. They are dead, afterdead, done and gone. Presumably, they merge with the plane, something you can have the main character point out doesn't sound all that different from oblivion.
5e lore.
From the DMG, we know that the deity-or-alignment rule is still in place. Again, fine by me. Forgotten Realms is harder on the godless, but that's a Realmspace-specific problem.
The DMG, the MM and MToF make memory wipe a thing for souls that get transformed into fiends, typically a LE lemure, NE larva, or CE manes. Instead of memory cores floating in the Astral, we get memory sediment at the bottom of the River Styx, although that connection is only made clear for devils.
Other relevant pieces of lore:
From the DMG, the MM, and VGtM, we know that the souls of goblinoids and orcs battle each other in Acheron, at the calls of the evil gods Maglubiyet and Gruumsh.
In MToF, we learn that most elven souls are stuck in a reincarnation cycle that brings them back and forth between Arborea (specifically Arvandor) and the Material.
The DMG states that Arcadian dwarves and Arborean elves have the celestial type.
Also from the DMG, "one can imagine the perceptible part of the Outer Planes as a border region, while extensive spiritual regions lie beyond ordinary sensory experience".
My take.
I would give petitioners a break in the following ways:
Petitioners of the Upper and Lower Planes get either the celestial of fiend type, as appropriate.
Petitioners get to keep their memories unless they become devils, demons or larvae.
They all have lemure-style regeneration, i.e. they reform on their plane whether they die there or elsewhere, unless specific holy/unholy conditions are met.
It can take them days, weeks, months or years to reappear. Sometimes, they are considered to have permanently merged with the plane, which just means they have moved past its Material-like surface.
Some planes hasten this outcome, such as psychedelic Elysium or depressive Hades. Others have petitioners work toward it, as with the climb of Mount Celestia. And others delay it as much as possible, like Acheron or Ysgard.