Ebberon: The Most Depressing Cosmology?

[FilthyLucre]

Does anyone else feel this way? I really like the distance of the deities and the various religions such that they leave a lot of "ultimate truth" ambiguous and mysterious... but god damn the Ebberon cannon afterlife is hella bleak {scrubbed}. Does anyone else feel this way? It just puts a bad taste in my mouth as far as Ebberon goes.

[Sigreid]

I don't actually know anything about it.

[Comaward]

Yes, I too find Eberron’s afterlife tremendously bleak, but that bleakness is a major element of the setting.

It is the reason behind Aerenal preserving its honored dead as Undying, so that they do not disappear into oblivion.

It is why the Valenar work to recreate the deeds of their ancestors; to preserve their spirit in the world.

Of course, the Church of the Silver Flame does offer an escape of sorts, where your soul lives on inside the Silver Flame.

[FilthyLucre]

Yes, I too find Eberron’s afterlife tremendously bleak, but that bleakness is a major element of the setting.

It is the reason behind Aerenal preserving its honored dead as Undying, so that they do not disappear into oblivion.

It is why the Valenar work to recreate the deeds of their ancestors; to preserve their spirit in the world.

Of course, the Church of the Silver Flame does offer an escape of sorts, where your soul lives on inside the Silver Flame.

Being totally cynical... in my opinion only a flat idiot would worship the Sovereign Host and not the Dark Six if they at least offer the possibility of a sort of afterlife. Sure, you could be all self righteous and moral and such, but just from a "survival instinct" sort of perspective I think it's a no brainer.

Also, as a point of order, they DO continue to exist (possibly indefinitely), according to the source books it just seems really bleak/boring and completely incapable of motivating anyone to actually care about the Sovereign Host.

[HappyDaze]

It's a 5e world now, so nobody important ever really dies and stays dead (and if they do, then they obviously weren't important).

[Sir_Chivalry]

Well you're going to have to be a bit more elaborate on what exactly you're not liking but it's something to work off

There's functionally two different groups of gods in Eberron (two Rs, one B):

The Sovereigns: this group is the Dark Six and the Sovereign Host, a big messed up family, representing human interpretation of what might or might not be divine beings known in goblinoid, giant and draconic traditions before. Parts of the pantheon are seen in other cultures, such that dwarven, monster (medusae, harpies, etc) or sahuagin cultures venerate gods which are accepted as aspects of the Sovereigns. They are distant and immaterial, bringing vague wealth and status or the occurrence of favourable events in exchange for worship

The Silver Flame: this is a physical manifestation of a very real thing in Eberron. Under the earth there is a power that binds the fiendish overlords, created by the couatl in the dawn age. This power ruptures forth in places like Khalesh in Sarlona, under the sea in the volcanic vents, in the crags of the mountains of the Demon Wastes, and in Thrane. Mortals have long worshiped it and it encourages surrender of the self in service or protecting innocent people from supernatural evil.

Every other "god" is a philosophy or represents a cultural focus. The Aereni and Tairnadal elves don't worship gods but instead strongly venerate their ancestors, either physically in the cause of the deathless Aereni or through emulation and memory in the case of the Tairnadal. The Seekers of the Blood of Vol believe much like you that the distant gods and the lack of a reward after death means that the followers should enrich their own divine essence, to achieve enlightenment and learn to rely on each other and themselves and not some distant god. The Paths of Light and Inspiration are both regional cults (one ascetic and the other nationalistic) that call for a surrender of the self for the good of the cause

People in Eberron (besides the Seekers) don't fear the afterlife, they make the most of the world they are in. And the Sovereigns teach that Dolurruh is not the end, but a place where the soul dissolves in preparation for moving on. Perhaps to oblivion, or perhaps to a promised higher existence, depending on who you ask

[Fable Wright]

One b, two rs. Eberron.

And the key thing to remember about Eberron is that Dollurh is not the end, according to all religions except the Blood of Vol and the Elves.

Once cleansed by Dollurh, your soul joins the Silver Flame protecting the world. Or perhaps it joins the Sovereigns in a plane that the impure world of mortals cannot reach until cleansed. There is a heaven; but it wouldn't be heaven if the impure could reach it, right?

Those who have no faith call death the end. Dollurh takes you and you fade to oblivion, and thus the faithless seek to avoid death by any means, whether by immortality through Magic Jar or Clone or undeath or perhaps inventing their own heaven; a massive Khyber Crystal containing the souls of all the faithful, where they can live together forever without the degradation of Dollurh.

It does add a bit to death that the full mechanisms of where souls come from and where they go remain mysteries that let characters draw their own conclusions, and let the DM resolve it in truth.

That said, the afterlife is way more forgiving than Dark Sun, and arguably better than the Forgotten Realms.

[HappyDaze]

Once cleansed by Dollurh, your soul joins the Silver Flame protecting the world.

So, much like dinosaurs, you die and then become something else that is then pocessed into something pure that burns clean.

[Evaar]

Dolurrh is important because it allows for a literal, demonstrable underworld where the dead go but doesn't answer any of the questions about what happens after death.

It's a holding area, really. So you can have your underworld adventure, but there's still a reason for the religions to argue about what happens next. We continue not to have all the answers.

Could be souls really just fade away into nothing. Could be the souls there are just an echo and the real soul goes to a paradise/hell beyond the reach of anyone but the gods. Could be something in between.

[Bohandas]

The FRCS cosmology is pretty bleak as well. Its less bleak than Eberron overall, but worse in that the most bleak parts have been put there intentionally by ostensibly non-evil gods

[Comaward]

Being totally cynical... in my opinion only a flat idiot would worship the Sovereign Host and not the Dark Six if they at least offer the possibility of a sort of afterlife.

This is something that I am exploring in my home-game version of Eberron: the Sovereign Host as a religion is dying out (except in the Mror Holds).

Meanwhile, the Dark Six, the Blood of Vol, the Silver Flame, and the Cults of the Dragon Below are seeing more and more converts to their faith every day.

[Grod_The_Giant]

The FRCS cosmology is pretty bleak as well. Its less bleak than Eberron overall, but worse in that the most bleak parts have been put there intentionally by ostensibly non-evil gods
Yeah. There may by no afterlife in Eberron, but at least there's no Wall of the Faithless.

[KorvinStarmast]

Ebberon: The Most Depressing Cosmology?

Keith Baker was pretty clear that his genre was noir
Of course it's bleak.
Mission accomplished, it seems. :smallcool:

[Bubzors]

Yea I hate cosmologies where everything is explained and there is absolutely no mystery. One where the gods are active and people know for sure what happens after death

For example i do not understand how anyone could possibly want to be evil in Forgotten Realms. In most major cities you have people who can and have communed with outsiders, confirming the destiny of your soul if you act evil. There is proof the gods exist in that they not too long ago roamed the lands.

What's a few decades of power here and now when you have to spend eternity in hell or some equally terrible place? The black and white of it all is dumb. I much prefer a ambiquous explanation even it turns a little bleaker. I'd rather go into oblivion in Eberron then know that my soul would be damned in eternal hellfire

[hamishspence]

Keith Baker was pretty clear that his genre was noir
Of course it's bleak.

It isn't just noir. It's also pulp:


https://the-monkey-king.livejournal.com/198574.html


[**Eberron's pretensions to noir aren't cutting it for me. Halflings on dinosaurs, magic trains, and the evil cardinals of the Silver Flame all add up to "slightly campy pulp" to me, not noir.**

That's because they ARE slightly campy pulp, not noir. The thing to understand is that when I describe Eberron as "pulp-noir", that's not a single thing - it's a spectrum. Eberron is "Lord of the Rings meets Raiders of the Lost Ark and The Maltese Falcon"... but not necessarily AT THE SAME TIME. I wanted a setting that could play in both directions and which COULD bring them together - but which could also allow DMs to play to the extremes.

So lost cities of Xen'drik, battles atop a moving lightning rail, tribes of raptor-riding Talenta barbarians, undead soldiers of the Emerald Claw seeking to activate the Necrotic Resonator - these things are pure pulp. There's no pretension that they are noir in any way; this is Raiders of the Lost Ark with swords and sorcery, with no trace of Sam Spade or Gutman.

On the other end of the spectrum, we have the slums of Sharn. The Machiavellian intrigues of Zilargo. The lingering resentments between the Five Nations, overshadowed by the lurking fear that the Mourning will happen again - the quiet belief that this may be the last generation, that the world could end at any moment, coupled with the assurance that if it doesn't, the war WILL begin anew. The schemes of the Dragonmarked Houses, both the short-term quest for wealth and the long, slow unraveling of the monarchies. THIS is where the noir comes into Eberron. The old soldier who hunts warforged in the sewers of Sharn, seeking vengeance for his own slaughtered family and taking out his sorrows on these creatures who themselves have been abandoned by society. The cold war between the Five Nations balanced against the ancient hidden conflict between dragon and demon, a war that has continued while lesser civilizations have risen and fallen.

Then there are subjects that walk the line in between. The Dreaming Dark are a force most suited to subtle intrigues and the corruption of allies, but you can certainly work in a seen of over-the-top psi-fu action with an quori nightmare if that's what you want. The Lord of Blades can play the role of pulp villain, but he can also serve as a symbol of these discarded soldiers - weapons made for war and now lost and unwanted in a world that wishes to forget the conflict.

It's a mistake to look for noir in every atom of Eberron. It's not SUPPOSED to be there. The DM who loves pulp action and hates the darkness of noir can find exactly what he wants in Eberron - provided he picks the right locations and villains to use in his game. The same is true of the DM who likes noir and hates the over-the-top pulp. It's a spectrum - not a single flavor. There may be halflings riding dinosaurs... in the Talenta Plains. But if you hate them, there's no reason your players ever need to see a clawfoot.

[Anonymouswizard]

Does anyone else feel this way? I really like the distance of the deities and the various religions such that they leave a lot of "ultimate truth" ambiguous and mysterious... but god damn the Ebberon cannon afterlife is hella bleak, (and incidentally almost identical to the [probably want to edit this bit out]). Does anyone else feel this way? It just puts a bad taste in my mouth as far as Ebberon goes.

I've played games in more bleak cosmologies, Warhammer just to give one example.

Eberron's afterlife is bleak, but the challenge there is crafting meanwhile adventures around that. Eberron already does part of the work with several religions dedicated to avoiding the afterlife or saying there's another one past it.


It's a 5e world now, so nobody important ever really dies and stays dead (and if they do, then they obviously weren't important).

To be fair that was true back in 3.X. Eberron as a world didn't officially move from it's start date, and so nobody ever officially got killed off for real. It's actually a much better way than the Forgotten Realms version.

[Lord Raziere]

No, Dark Sun's worse. Dark Sun is always worse. There is nothing more depressing than living on a desert world, dying then finding yourself in The Gray, which is an infinite featureless grey plane where all souls are simply trapped here until they fade away, but at least you can prolong your existence by dedicating to a cause greater than yourself? but its pointless because your in an infinite featureless grey plane in setting where resurrection is pretty much gone unless something miraculous happens, all your doing is extending your pain.

worse yet you can't even blame this on gods, they're all dead or blocked off from you. at least with the Wall of the Faithless you can avoid it by welcoming your divine overlords. with The Grey, your just screwed because no matter what you believe or what you did in life, your trapped in the same depressing place as everyone else to fade away slowly.

[Brookshw]

Does anyone else feel this way? It just puts a bad taste in my mouth as far as Ebberon goes.

Yeah, its one of the many things I don't like about the setting. I had a similar feeling about Dark Sun's afterlife.

[Fable Wright]

What's a few decades of power here and now when you have to spend eternity in hell or some equally terrible place? The black and white of it all is dumb. I much prefer a ambiquous explanation even it turns a little bleaker. I'd rather go into oblivion in Eberron then know that my soul would be damned in eternal hellfire

Except that's not how the FR afterlife works. You go to the divine realm of your patron, or the Wall of the Faithless. You know that doing Evil in the name of Shar will, in the end, reward you with a cushy position at the Palace of Loss, and if you send Shar prisoners you might get the right to torment them. Imagine the biggest corruption racket in the world, that extends into the afterlife. Your golden parachute *can* be taken with you after you die.

Things are different in the Great Wheel at large, where there's no reward or punishment. You just join in with all the people with beliefs like yours. Are you the kind of person who'd taunt minions with Hellfire? If so, you get to be fresh meat with people who share your tastes... and after a while get to hold the pitchfork.

Your only reward or punishment is living in a world entirely populated by people like you.

[hamishspence]

The False don't end up in the Wall, or in their patron's realm - they just suffer punishments of Kelemvor's choice, in the Crystal City. Depending on the nature of the False, these may be mild, or severe.

[Squark]

Without getting into details that would violate forum rules... Dollurh isn't terribly different from the transitory periods of the afterlife found in many real life religions. Less colorful, perhaps, but that means less unpleasantness as well. Think of it more like the soul's chrysalis stage, with ideas as to the mystery of what comes after ranging anywhere from oblivion to a majestic metaphorical butterfly.

[FilthyLucre]

Without getting into details that would violate forum rules... Dollurh isn't terribly different from the transitory periods of the afterlife found in many real life religions. Less colorful, perhaps, but that means less unpleasantness as well. Think of it more like the soul's chrysalis stage, with ideas as to the mystery of what comes after ranging anywhere from oblivion to a majestic metaphorical butterfly.

{scrubbed}

[Zerubbabel]

It's got a lot to contend with
- Dark Sun
- Sigil (Planescape)
- Avernus

All pretty dark depressing places, but with plenty of excitement and sparks or life none the less.

Oddly, I absolutely adore all things Noir but don't click with Eberron yet. I think it could have been executed fair better, and wasn't impressed with the earlier Eberron release. Not feeling it, but it's better than Ravnica... (which I returned for Tomb of Annihilation - which was a masterpiece)

[HappyDaze]

No, Dark Sun's worse. Dark Sun is always worse. There is nothing more depressing than living on a desert world, dying then finding yourself in The Gray, which is an infinite featureless grey plane where all souls are simply trapped here until they fade away, but at least you can prolong your existence by dedicating to a cause greater than yourself? but its pointless because your in an infinite featureless grey plane in setting where resurrection is pretty much gone unless something miraculous happens, all your doing is extending your pain.


The Gray sounds way too much like working for my employer (or pretty much any employer).

[Anymage]

Without getting into details that would violate forum rules... Dollurh isn't terribly different from the transitory periods of the afterlife found in many real life religions. Less colorful, perhaps, but that means less unpleasantness as well. Think of it more like the soul's chrysalis stage, with ideas as to the mystery of what comes after ranging anywhere from oblivion to a majestic metaphorical butterfly.

This. A setting's crapsack quotient does not rest wholly on whether or not you get a happy afterlife. There are definite crapsack points if someone or something actively punishes you for arbitrary things. (Insert rant about the wall of the faithless here.) But a great wheel style where your reward/punishment is hanging out with other people like you is okay. Ditto one where death is truly the end with nothing after it. What you can do with your life matters more than what happens after.

[Tetrasodium]

Does anyone else feel this way? I really like the distance of the deities and the various religions such that they leave a lot of "ultimate truth" ambiguous and mysterious... but god damn the Ebberon cannon afterlife is hella bleak {scrubbed}. Does anyone else feel this way? It just puts a bad taste in my mouth as far as Ebberon goes.

I'm going to preface my answer with a bit about eberron's afterlife for others, it sounds like you already gasped in horror at it

Dolurrh is Eberron's realm of the dead, where most mortals go when they die. For those on the plane of Dolurrh, colors become grayer and less vivid, and visitors experience a feeling of ennui. Those that visit the plane sway under its influence, losing the desire to leave, and eventually forgetting their previous lives. These visitors eventually become shades, and native to Dolurrh.

good enough sourcep (https://eberron.fandom.com/wiki/Dolurrh)
Yes it makes The Wall of the faithless seem positively cheery, but there are two things to remember. First is that eberron has extremely dark elements like war crimes on a massive scale & worse implied or explicitly spelled out in ways that are often less than obvious compared to other settings. Second is the fact that the bleak depressing nature of Dolurrh is a huge part of three of the major faiths in the setting. In no particular order:

The Dark Six: Technically The Six are part of the same pantheon as The Sovereign Host (The Nine). Depending on who you ask that is either accepted truth despite propaganda & scheming to the opposite or blasphemy. One of The Six is The Keeper (https://eberron.fandom.com/wiki/The_Keeper). Among other things, the keeper will snatch worthy souls of the dead away to his vault before from the Devourer can do his thing. Those souls are kept in the vault until some future point where those individuals are needed for greater things.
The Church of the Silver Flame(CoSF): These guys are almost cheery & call themselves purified. The CoSF is deeply concerned with evil (supernatural evil specifically). When the purified die, their soul joins with The Silver flame wher it's strength & purity is used to fight & contain a powerful evil all but spelled out as being one or more of the demon overlords. A much older version of this faith minus the lolipope & fancy flamekeep is The Kalok Shash.
The couatl sacrificing themselves (https://eberron.fandom.com/wiki/Kalok_Shash) to bind the demon overlords is an important bit of lore to understanding either faith. If fighting against a world ending evil forever sounds better than Dolurrh & the nine or maybe hanging out in the keeper's vault sounds good to you... this is probably the faith for you. It's also the only faith that can definitively say they worship something that exists, anyone can go to the glamekeep & see the pillar of silver flame created when tia miron sacrificed herself to bind an escaped overlord.

The Blood of Vol(BoV): They call themselves seekers & despite an ill worded section of293 they do not "revere undead" for their immortality(more on this later). The BoV believe that everyone has a spark of divinity within them. They further believe that mortality i a curse inflicted upon everyone by the Sovereigns (both the six and the nine) so they can steal that s[ark of divinity in order to empower themselves unjustly. Their version of the rapture(or whatever) is that one day someone will learn to break that curse of mortality while keeping their spark of divinity. Once someone dies, that sparkof divinity no longer inhabits their body & someone animating it as a zombie or some other unintelligent undead in order to keep helping the dead's family/village/etc is pretty much the equivalent of giving the Sovereigns a middle finger... They may have stolen the dead's spark of divinity, but their body is still around helping those he or she cared for in life.
Intelligent undead have immortality, but they sacrifice that spark of divinity to gain it. When an intelligent undead is able to keep their cursed instincts in check and do good things for the community, they are respected and pitied. An example might be someone with vast knowledge who undergoes mummification to preserve that knowledge for others or a vampire who controls themself by surviving on communal blood donations who protects a village.

It's Critical to note that even though eberron pretty much gives the good-evil axis the middle finger for mortals, but lycanthropy, vampirism, undeath, & similar curses are terrible curses that destroy who you were & replace the original personality. Even in absolute morality settings like FR lycanthropy is less bad than vampirism/lichification/etc, so this writeup on lyvcanthropy (http://keith-baker.com/dragonmarks-lycanthropes/) should make clear just how much worse undeath is. Thre is also unliving (also a curse), but that's a whole different can of worms.

Most seekers have no idea who Erandis Vo is & have nothing to do with [url="https://eberron.fandom.com/wiki/Order_of_the_Emerald_Claw"]The Emerald Claw (https://eberron.fandom.com/wiki/Erandis_Vol). lErandis Vol (http://keith-baker.com/dragonmark-the-blood-of-vol/) is quite possibly the most tragic individual in all of D&D. She might also have scary amounts of power as a half dragon lich who may have been taught the secrets of magic by her father (a Dragon of Eberron) who is kept in check by some mix of wanting to restore her dragonmark (undead can't use them) combined with the fact that being too open about her survival could unite The Dragons into making sure they finished the job this time.


The fact that nobody (including the celestials who serve them) can definitively say if the gods are real or not allows for schisms & such that would not be possible if you could just call up the god & ask who's worshiping right & who's talking heresy. (CoSF excepting, anyone can go & see the Silver Flame/Kalok Shash at the flamekeep but that is a force or something rather than a god)

edit: with regards to resurrection in eberron, not only do you need to find someone capable of performing it... You need to find someone capable who is willing to take your soul away from the greater cause they believe it is fulfilling and get them to do it before you fade away. Good thing there is often something (http://keith-baker.com/the-cost-of-a-life/) willing to bargain for services. :smallbiggrin:

[Amechra]

I dunno, I think Ravenloft beats every other D&D cosmology, at least for non-Darklord "natives". Let's see:


You're locked in a planar prison.
It's not even your prison - the jerks who built the place grabbed you because they needed set-dressing for their ironic punishment.
If you die, you reincarnate. You can't escape from Ravenloft, not even by dying.
You're literally incapable of grasping your situation, even if someone explains it to you. The Mists don't want you to know how things work, because then you might try to go off-script.


"After you die, you go to this kinda depressing place, where you'll eventually fade away to nothingness" sounds much better than "The cosmos has decreed that you are an NPC, and if you die they'll just recycle you into a new role. All of the roles are pretty awful, and exist as set-dressing for the eternal ironic punishment of some jerk."

[Luccan]

It's comparatively bleak on a meta level because we the players don't know*. If you were to take two in-universe dirt farmers, one from Eberron and one from Faerun, neither could actually be certain where their soul ends up when they die. They (probably) believe whatever the local faith tells them. So for the average person there isn't much of a difference. Especially if, as others have said, two popular religions claim Dolluruh isn't the end.

On a larger scale, this uncertainty allows for schisms and inner-conflict in the faiths (again, as others have pointed out). Two followers of a Faerunian or Greyhawk deity aren't going to get much mileage, storywise, out of arguing about the faith. At some point well before it tears that religion in two, a cleric, avatar, or the god themself will show up and correct the situation. In Eberron, no such thing can happen. Provably, at least.

*edit: I think in addition to providing fodder for conflicts you couldn't really have in most other games, this is also one of those questions Eberron intentionally leaves open for each table to decide on. Maybe your adventures do lead you to the truth of the afterlife. It could be interesting to play a game where the PCs go around converting towns to their new understanding of the world's cosmology.

[FilthyLucre]

I'm going to preface my answer with a bit about eberron's afterlife for others, it sounds like you already gasped in horror at it

Yes it makes The Wall of the faithless seem positively cheery, but there are two things to remember. First is that eberron has extremely dark elements like war crimes on a massive scale & worse implied or explicitly spelled out in ways that are often less than obvious compared to other settings. Second is the fact that the bleak depressing nature of Dolurrh is a huge part of three of the major faiths in the setting. In no particular order:

The Dark Six: Technically The Six are part of the same pantheon as The Sovereign Host (The Nine). Depending on who you ask that is either accepted truth despite propaganda & scheming to the opposite or blasphemy. One of The Six is The Keeper (https://eberron.fandom.com/wiki/The_Keeper). Among other things, the keeper will snatch worthy souls of the dead away to his vault before from the Devourer can do his thing. Those souls are kept in the vault until some future point where those individuals are needed for greater things.
The Church of the Silver Flame(CoSF): These guys are almost cheery & call themselves purified. The CoSF is deeply concerned with evil (supernatural evil specifically). When the purified die, their soul joins with The Silver flame wher it's strength & purity is used to fight & contain a powerful evil all but spelled out as being one or more of the demon overlords. A much older version of this faith minus the lolipope & fancy flamekeep is The Kalok Shash.
The couatl sacrificing themselves (https://eberron.fandom.com/wiki/Kalok_Shash) to bind the demon overlords is an important bit of lore to understanding either faith. If fighting against a world ending evil forever sounds better than Dolurrh & the nine or maybe hanging out in the keeper's vault sounds good to you... this is probably the faith for you. It's also the only faith that can definitively say they worship something that exists, anyone can go to the glamekeep & see the pillar of silver flame created when tia miron sacrificed herself to bind an escaped overlord.

The Blood of Vol(BoV): They call themselves seekers & despite an ill worded section of293 they do not "revere undead" for their immortality(more on this later). The BoV believe that everyone has a spark of divinity within them. They further believe that mortality i a curse inflicted upon everyone by the Sovereigns (both the six and the nine) so they can steal that s[ark of divinity in order to empower themselves unjustly. Their version of the rapture(or whatever) is that one day someone will learn to break that curse of mortality while keeping their spark of divinity. Once someone dies, that sparkof divinity no longer inhabits their body & someone animating it as a zombie or some other unintelligent undead in order to keep helping the dead's family/village/etc is pretty much the equivalent of giving the Sovereigns a middle finger... They may have stolen the dead's spark of divinity, but their body is still around helping those he or she cared for in life.
Intelligent undead have immortality, but they sacrifice that spark of divinity to gain it. When an intelligent undead is able to keep their cursed instincts in check and do good things for the community, they are respected and pitied. An example might be someone with vast knowledge who undergoes mummification to preserve that knowledge for others or a vampire who controls themself by surviving on communal blood donations who protects a village.

It's Critical to note that even though eberron pretty much gives the good-evil axis the middle finger for mortals, but lycanthropy, vampirism, undeath, & similar curses are terrible curses that destroy who you were & replace the original personality. Even in absolute morality settings like FR lycanthropy is less bad than vampirism/lichification/etc, so this writeup on lyvcanthropy (http://keith-baker.com/dragonmarks-lycanthropes/) should make clear just how much worse undeath is. Thre is also unliving (also a curse), but that's a whole different can of worms.

Most seekers have no idea who Erandis Vo is & have nothing to do with [url="https://eberron.fandom.com/wiki/Order_of_the_Emerald_Claw"]The Emerald Claw (https://eberron.fandom.com/wiki/Erandis_Vol). lErandis Vol (http://keith-baker.com/dragonmark-the-blood-of-vol/) is quite possibly the most tragic individual in all of D&D. She might also have scary amounts of power as a half dragon lich who may have been taught the secrets of magic by her father (a Dragon of Eberron) who is kept in check by some mix of wanting to restore her dragonmark (undead can't use them) combined with the fact that being too open about her survival could unite The Dragons into making sure they finished the job this time.


The fact that nobody (including the celestials who serve them) can definitively say if the gods are real or not allows for schisms & such that would not be possible if you could just call up the god & ask who's worshiping right & who's talking heresy. (CoSF excepting, anyone can go & see the Silver Flame/Kalok Shash at the flamekeep but that is a force or something rather than a god)

edit: with regards to resurrection in eberron, not only do you need to find someone capable of performing it... You need to find someone capable who is willing to take your soul away from the greater cause they believe it is fulfilling and get them to do it before you fade away. Good thing there is often something (http://keith-baker.com/the-cost-of-a-life/) willing to bargain for services. :smallbiggrin:

I reread some source material and it actually explicitly states that most religions in Ebberon assume that Dolurrh is not the final resting place of souls. So I guess I have to rescind my earlier complaint.

[Tetrasodium]

I reread some source material and it actually explicitly states that most religions in Ebberon assume that Dolurrh is not the final resting place of souls. So I guess I have to rescind my earlier complaint.

That too yea. I thought about mentioning it but that seemed like a difficult thing to explain without the context of those religions themselves given how wildly different they are from religions of other settings were you can call up the gods & watch them get in bar brawls. All in all, religions in eberron are a lot more interesting than FR because they leave so many big questions up to the player/gm/table to decide & work out rather than page xx of novel yy wjere god Q clearly explains $thing in a way that leaves no question or room for debate.

[Evaar]

Also I should point out, Keith has an excellent post here: http://keith-baker.com/silver-and-bone/

In it he describes a version of the afterlife that's much less bleak, where you have psychopomps there to guide spirits through the process of death and help them reach some form of peace. The current state of things is a result of something terrible; it's not SUPPOSED to be that way. That can be something the player characters end up fixing.

[ImperiousLeader]

There's an ambiguity to Eberron that is a feature for me, though I understand others may find it a bug.

[Millstone85]

So, much like dinosaurs, you die and then become something else that is then pocessed into something pure that burns clean.This problem also shows up in the Great Wheel, which makes a distinction between your soul and your identity. The former may get reincarnated as a petitioner, or become the battery a fiend runs on, while the later may end up as a memory core floating in the Astral, or join the silt at the bottom of the Styx.

[HappyDaze]

This problem also shows up in the Great Wheel, which makes a distinction between your soul and your identity. The former may get reincarnated as a petitioner, or become the battery a fiend runs on, while the later may end up as a memory core floating in the Astral, or join the silt at the bottom of the Styx.

I just found the idea that worshipers become spiritual propane fueling the Silver Flame a fun mental picture.