[Dragonlance/Faerun] Anyone here met any Cataclysm/Wall of the Faithless defenders? [Archive]

Glorthindel

2020-10-26, 04:14 AM

I wouldn't call it a defence, but my theory on why the Wall of the Faithless is a necessary and vital function, is to interpret it as less a deliberate and spiteful divine punishment, and more as a celestial trash compactor. If you work on the principle that souls have to go somewhere after death, and that the only way into places other than purgatory is by direct shepherding by divine beings, then you have one of two things occuring without the existence of the Wall (or a similar functional object/location).

The first alternative is all divine beings start sweeping up as many souls as they can get their hands on (Demons and Devils certainly opt for this approach). But this creates the problem that you might sweep up souls who would rather be one place, and drag them somewhere they don't want to be (again, Demons and Devils have no problem with this, but Good Outsiders would probably suffer an existential crisis over doing this), and that would either be traumatic for the soul, or create am imbalance in your home plane (if you pile too many other-aligned souls into it). So its not a great solution. Sucks to be a devout soul dragged into the wrong place due to the need to grab souls fast before someone else does, though it might be better for those who follow no deity, as at least they end up somewhere (even if it is a coin-flip on whether it suits their ethos or not)

Option two is you just let the souls build up in a massive pile, try and sort out 'your' souls, and hope you don't lose anyone in the crush. Its hard to put finite levels of power on divine beings, but sooner or later (and with sudden unexpected mass soul influxes), as the weight of 'unaligned' souls build up with nowhere to go, ones that should be moved on might end up lost and forgotten in the pile. Sucks to be a devout follower who gets forgotten because they crossed over with a few hundred of an alternate alignment, so your patron doesn't see you in the pile, and sucks for those who follow no deity as they are sat in the pile for eternity. Consider the afterlife like a baggage claim carousel; if say for some strange reason 1 bag in 10 goes uncollected, if no-one ever shifts the unclaimed bags into storage, how many flights will come in before the entire carousel is jammed solid by unclaimed bags, so its impossible for bags which would be claimed to get to their waiting owners.

So, and I am well aware this is probably more personal head-canon than as-written, I see the Wall as a necessary place to file away anyone who the good-aligned deities feel they can't legitimately claim, so they aren't cluttering up the place for those they do need to claim, and at least it gives them somewhere they cant be easily dragged off from by Demons and Devils. Sure, does it suck to end up in the Wall, of course it does, but if you assume the cosmology doesn't allow for finding your own place, and relies on the shepherding by others, at the end of the day, there needs to be somewhere to dump those that cant be moved on, once they have sat for a sufficient time in baggage claim.

Note: I am not saying the Wall is a great thing, and certainly you could expect the divine powers to come up with something more humane (though I don't personally see Dolurrh in Eberron as any more humane, its basically the same thing, except you can walk around a bit, and everyone gets dumped there), but something has to be done with the 'junk' souls with nowhere to go, and this is the most efficient system they could devise for the benefit of the souls that can move on

Saintheart

2020-10-26, 04:47 AM

In the vein that they view the Cataclysm that the gods sent to the mortal world for Istar's corruption as justified to some extent.

This is one of those loaded questions where if one post goes the wrong way, we wind up with a locked thread, so, I will try to proceed with caution.

The only justification for the Cataclysm springs from two things:
(1) The Dragonlance gods are sentient, and imperfect beings but not omnipotent; and
(2) The entire setting is premised on the absolute necessity of good and evil coexisting in the world, which is a pretty weird way to view reality.

The justification for the Cataclysm is given by Paladine: they (or he alone, in some accounts) saw that the Kingpriest of Istar if unchecked would proceed to use the gods' powers to eliminate not just evil, but anything that disagreed with him. After 13 Warnings, and after pulling out all the clerics who still actually believed in their gods (most didn't), the gods hurled the fiery mountain at Istar, destroying it and sending the world into disaster. It also had the effect of removing all current power bases which were essentially dependent on, or followed the views of, Istar. The Solamnic Knights survived but were shamed into exile in pretty well every land except Solamnia itself. It was a brutal way to reset the board, but the gods didn't apparently see any other way to intervene with the Kingpriest and restore the balance. Not to mention that as said, the gods had already pulled out all of their clerics and anyone who still believed and followed the will of the gods (Lord Soth being one who believed in the gods and had the chance to avert the Cataclysm, but purposefully turned away from the opportunity to save the world.)

This justification is pretty contestable from a moral standpoint in our world, but it is internally consistent to the setting - remembering that the setting requires coexistent good and evil and maintains gods who can see the future but are not omnipotent and who are not perfect. So that's the justification: it's required by the rules the setting puts up for itself. This is a separate issue from whether it's icky or genocidal or immoral to throw fiery mountains at people in our own world.

Yora

2020-10-26, 04:59 AM

I never heard of anyone complain about this. How many people are actually bothered by it?

RifleAvenger

2020-10-26, 05:02 AM

I never heard of anyone complain about this. How many people are actually bothered by it?

Wall of the Faithless bothers me something fierce, and I'd never play in a Forgotten Realms game that actively acknowledges it exists.

I more laugh at the Cataclysm as an standout example of how Dragonlance's core setting conceits are inimical to any story I'd ever care to read, let alone take part in.

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My objections to both are largely based in Doylist reasons. Most of the people I've met who defend them either:

1) Are playing devil's advocate. The most common.

2) Take it on face value that these things make sense in-universe even if objectionable otherwise. Second by a wide margin.
(I'd argue that the Wall actually DOESN'T make sense, and is just a piece of preserved kludge in the fossil assemblage that is FR lore; That it didn't exist prior to Myrkul and was viewed as a VERY BAD THING to the point of its original destruction undermines arguments for the necessity of its existence. Cataclysm does make internal sense to Dragonlance).

3) Their personal values cause them to agree with the existence of one or both.

4) Some combination of 2&3.

Millstone85

2020-10-26, 05:45 AM

I know nothing about the Cataclysm, bur here is my problem with the Wall.

If you work on the principle that souls have to go somewhere after death, and that the only way into places other than purgatory is by direct shepherding by divine beings, then you have one of two things occuring without the existence of the Wall (or a similar functional object/location).That is explicitly not the case in the Great Wheel cosmology, where the Outer Planes themselves attract souls that match their alignment. So if one considers Faerûn to be part of that cosmology, as I do, it makes Torilian souls somehow shielded from that attraction.

How? Why? Why do all Torilian souls first go the Fugue Plane, which by the way is part of the neutral evil plane of Hades, and remain stuck here unless claimed by a god? According to the novels, it is because only the evil gods are able to keep their followers without the threat of the Wall. Wow, the rest of the pantheon must be really incompetent!

And I do believe you are the first Wall defender I met. :smallsmile:

Glorthindel

2020-10-26, 07:46 AM

I know nothing about the Cataclysm, bur here is my problem with the Wall.

That is explicitly not the case in the Great Wheel cosmology, where the Outer Planes themselves attract souls that match their alignment. So if one considers Faerûn to be part of that cosmology, as I do, it makes Torilian souls somehow shielded from that attraction.

How? Why? Why do all Torilian souls first go the Fugue Plane, which by the way is part of the neutral evil plane of Hades, and remain stuck here unless claimed by a god? According to the novels, it is because only the evil gods are able to keep their followers without the threat of the Wall. Wow, the rest of the pantheon must be really incompetent!

Oh, absolutely, the whole thing breaks down when you apply the Great Wheel (and maybe the World Tree, I don't really know how that worked and blacked out its existence entirely), though that isn't just a feature of the Realms (Eberron and Ravenloft have their own rules for souls, and many of the others choose not to say anything). It is definitely a good question why Torilian souls act the way they do (though I suspect it is just because every setting pretends the Great Wheel and other settings do not exist except in explicit crossovers), but they do act that way, so I see the Wall as a solution to a problem caused by that fact. Not a good one, but it does the job.

And I do believe you are the first Wall defender I met. :smallsmile:
If there was a medal for that accolade, I am picturing it in matt grey with a sad face :smallbiggrin: My only defence is I thoroughlly agree the Cataclysm was bonkers.

Jason

2020-10-26, 08:41 AM

(2) The entire setting is premised on the absolute necessity of good and evil coexisting in the world, which is a pretty weird way to view reality.
The real world theosophical Problem of Evil is usually argued along the lines that in order for good to really be good it must include free will. In order for free will to exist evil has to be allowed to exist, at least temporarily. A perfectly good and omniscient God understands the necessity of free will and therefore allows evil to exist (at least for the moment).

In Krynn it's the gods of Neutrality who insist on defending free will. If either the gods of good or evil had their way free will would cease to exist. Hence the cataclysm. And yes, that is a consequence of the gods of Krynn being imperfect and not omniscient. Like the Fogotten Realms and Tolkien there is an "over god" in the background of the Krynn pantheon who is in essence the real God of the setting and who protects free will by allowing evil to (temporarily, at least) exist.

In the beginning were the gods from Beyond. There, before the beginning, they dwelt in joy in the presence of the High God whose children they were. It was there decreed that a new time and place would come to be. Time would there begin again, spirits would live and, in the course of time, new power would come to be...
...The High God decreed that each spirit could choose his own way through life. Then would come death, the passage from Krynn to the next state of existence....
...4. The Law of Consequence: This final law was given by the High God himself to rule over all other laws. For every law and rule that is obeyed there is a reward and blessing; for every law transgressed there is a punishment. Blessings and punishments may not come about immediately, bur they occur eventually.

Vahnavoi

2020-10-26, 09:30 AM

No, I haven't met any such people, because people who have no problems with these things don't raise a fuss and I personally don't run games in Krynn or Faerun.

This said, what people often seem to forget is that D&D has always had a strong undercurrent of horror in it. Survival horror, gothic horror, body horror, religious horror, cosmic horror, it's all been there practically from the start. Original Deities & Demigods had Lovecraft's pantheon next to those borrowed from real myth. D&D settings like Krynn and Faerun are grown from that cross-section of pretty much everything horrible ever invented. I question the purpose of singling out things like the Cataclysm or the Wall in this veritable sea of horrors.

Amidst all disturbing details in these settings, one actually got to you? That's a feature, not a bug.

Warder

2020-10-26, 09:45 AM

Until I saw this thread I had no idea people had strong feelings either way. In the FR games I've been a part of the Wall of the Faithless has absolutely been a part of the lore, but no one at any table has expressed any kinds of feelings about it, positive or negative. It's very far detached from most of what goes on in regular campaigns, after all. The one time it's been featured prominently in a storyline that I've been a part of wasn't in tabletop gaming at all, but in Neverwinter Nights 2: Mask of the Betrayer. I thought its inclusion there was fantastic. Just thinking about MotB makes me want to play it again, it's been far too long.

Saintheart

2020-10-26, 09:51 AM

The real world theosophical Problem of Evil is usually argued along the lines that in order for good to really be good it must include free will. In order for free will to exist evil has to be allowed to exist, at least temporarily. A perfectly good and omniscient God understands the necessity of free will and therefore allows evil to exist (at least for the moment).

In Krynn it's the gods of Neutrality who insist on defending free will. If either the gods of good or evil had their way free will would cease to exist. Hence the cataclysm. And yes, that is a consequence of the gods of Krynn being imperfect and not omniscient. Like the Fogotten Realms and Tolkien there is an "over god" in the background of the Krynn pantheon who is in essence the real God of the setting and who protects free will by allowing evil to (temporarily, at least) exist.

I'm aware of the Problem, I get the argument, but Krynn takes it way further and just about insists that good and evil have to be more or less in equal measure in the world for there to be balance. Right down to three gods of magic whose minions have equal representation in the Wizards' Conclave. I don't think the Problem of Evil suggests that the amount of evil in the world has to basically equal the amount of good, which is more or less what the Krynn system goes with. But anyway ... close to lock-line :)

Jason

2020-10-26, 10:03 AM

Hey, in Eberron nobody gets a rewarding afterlife. Priests may claim that the gods will spare you from fading away in apathy in Dolurrh, but nobody has ever proven if the gods even exist.

Dolurrh, the Realm of the Dead
A place of hopelessness, eternal despair, and consuming apathy, Dolurrh is the realm where mortal souls go after death. It is not a reward. It is not a punishment. It just is.

Anymage

2020-10-26, 10:26 AM

I'm aware of the Problem, I get the argument, but Krynn takes it way further and just about insists that good and evil have to be more or less in equal measure in the world for there to be balance. Right down to three gods of magic whose minions have equal representation in the Wizards' Conclave. I don't think the Problem of Evil suggests that the amount of evil in the world has to basically equal the amount of good, which is more or less what the Krynn system goes with. But anyway ... close to lock-line :)

The only thing I can say in defense of Dragonlance is that such balance fetishism makes sense in the fiction where Law vs. Chaos were the defining cosmic forces. When you attempt to follow that logic in a setting with a literal Good vs. Evil axis it breaks down, but that's more about being silly and nonsensical than anything else. I haven't met anyone who gets actively upset about Good vs. Evil balance fetishism, mind. Just a lot who think it's silly and nonsensical.

Hey, in Eberron nobody gets a rewarding afterlife. Priests may claim that the gods will spare you from fading away in apathy in Dolurrh, but nobody has ever proven if the gods even exist.

Without going on a long rant about how offensive and gobsmackingly stupid The Wall is, I'll just point out that Dolurrh isn't predicated on the idea that good people would stop worshiping and empowering good gods if they thought they could get a good afterlife through deeds alone. Simply having a crapsack afterlife isn't the problem. Writers consistently bungling it and doubling down is.

JadedDM

2020-10-26, 06:00 PM

Dragonlance's Cataclysm, bad as it is, gets way worse if you ever read about Taladas, the lesser known continent of Krynn. It also got smashed by a giant meteor, oceans rose, mountains fell, all clerics lost their power, hundreds of thousands died, war and plague covered the land, entire nations fell, etc., but nobody had any idea why. The vast majority of people in Taladas had never even heard of the Kingpriest or Istar.

Eldan

2020-10-27, 09:15 AM

Warder

2020-10-27, 09:38 AM

I mean, I don't have a problem with the wall existing, as such, but I have a problem with any setting material that claims it's somehow necessary or justified. As written, it's very clearly a direct threat from antagonistic gods that can't stand not being worshipped.

That's how it's framed in Mask of the Betrayer. I won't go into any spoilers, but its presentation there is excellent. The more I think about MotB, the more I actually like that the Wall exists, and I've felt decidedly indifferent about it before. :P

Palanan

2020-10-27, 10:11 AM

Originally Posted by Yora
I never heard of anyone complain about this. How many people are actually bothered by it?

Originally Posted by Warder
In the FR games I've been a part of the Wall of the Faithless has absolutely been a part of the lore, but no one at any table has expressed any kinds of feelings about it, positive or negative.

I’ve never heard any complaints about it either. Almost all of my 3.5 experience has been playing in various campaigns in the Forgotten Realms, and not once did this ever come up. We even had a priest of Kelemvor with us for one campaign and it was never mentioned. For the great majority of campaigns it’s simply not relevant.

Originally Posted by Vahnavoi
Amidst all disturbing details in these settings, one actually got to you? That's a feature, not a bug.

Exactly this. It seems like a strange detail to be concerned about, compared with everything else going on.

Willie the Duck

2020-10-27, 10:50 AM

I never heard of anyone complain about this. How many people are actually bothered by it?

Until I saw this thread I had no idea people had strong feelings either way.

I’ve never heard any complaints about it either.

I think a fair amount of people think one or the other is silly/stupid/not what they want in a game, and change it/play another setting/move on with their lives. Forums and other such navel-gazing conglomerations sometimes cycle through breakdowns of the things. Although, to be fair, I haven't seen the subject come up except on three or four forums very recently (this one included), all with the same language (so either the OP started them all, or is reposting a subject they saw elsewhere), so it could be that it bothers exactly one person/one person wants to discuss it.

Personally I don't overthink the D&D canon. The Forgotten Realms writers put a thing in for a storyline, realized that it explained why non-cleric PCs should choose a deity/be invested in all the lovely gods they created and for which they wrote so much fiction, and kept it. Gary liked him some Appendix N novels* where enforcing a balance between the forces of good and evil (actually probably law and chaos), made it a big thing in 1e, Weis and Hickman noticed it benefited stories they wanted to tell and ran with it. None of this stuff was designed to pass more than casual scrutiny and the large scale moral or existential questions/implications they might raise were not broadly considered. D&D is a game inspired by pulp fiction and hammer horror movies, and lives up to the genres in spades (including the part where it doesn't worry too much about the messy details).
*I forget which they would be.

GrayDeath

2020-10-27, 11:53 AM

I love to loathe the Wall. Especially since the excellent Mask of the Betrayer.

As for Dragonblance cataclysms....I am of 2 minds.

If you only see what actually happened, and where, it is completely, entirely out of proportion evil and ignoring short term consequences.

If you read the Justification, it makes more sense in World logic wise (not that I agree with the exact interpretation) but in turn makes one lose any form of respect in the gods.

I mean REALLY? They didnt have the ability to simply make the King Priest and all his lackeys explode and the blood form everburning letters writing "There are multiple ways of Good, dangit!"?
Heck if they still ahd divine Casting but not from them, they could have used a few loyal clerics to sacrifice themselves to do it, as last resort...

My Level 23 Wizard could have done that with prep time, and he aint a God, no sir...

Glorthindel

2020-10-27, 12:02 PM

One of the things with Dragonlance, is I've always considered it a 'novel' world more than an 'rpg' one.

By this I mean that a lot of the world doesn't work if you are not following the linear journey of a specific group of story-book characters; the settlements are weirdly arranged in a way that would make real-world communication and travel either impossible or utterly bizarre (to facilitate characters going sequentially from one to another as the novel story progresses) and civilisations seem locked in weird situations that have persisted for bizarrely long periods of time unchanged (the Elves and Knights of Solamnia fall into this category nicely). Alongside the other oddities of Krynn, the Cataclysm is just yet another thing that just 'is', and doesn't make a lot of sense if examined in any level of detail.

LibraryOgre

2020-10-27, 12:18 PM

I generally support the Wall of the Faithless BUT only in its 2e incarnation, where it was explicitly for those who outright rejected the gods, or who had actively betrayed their deities.

Xervous

2020-10-27, 01:25 PM

I generally support the Wall of the Faithless BUT only in its 2e incarnation, where it was explicitly for those who outright rejected the gods, or who had actively betrayed their deities.

Could you elaborate more on what constitutes rejection here?

Plenty of editions have terrible fates for those who fool around with loyalty and gods, so that part I’m all clear on. Though it does leave me wondering if the wall could conceivably be tied to a vestige it at least indirectly.

Jorren

2020-10-27, 01:37 PM

I think a fair amount of people think one or the other is silly/stupid/not what they want in a game, and change it/play another setting/move on with their lives. Forums and other such navel-gazing conglomerations sometimes cycle through breakdowns of the things. Although, to be fair, I haven't seen the subject come up except on three or four forums very recently (this one included), all with the same language (so either the OP started them all, or is reposting a subject they saw elsewhere), so it could be that it bothers exactly one person/one person wants to discuss it.

Personally I don't overthink the D&D canon. The Forgotten Realms writers put a thing in for a storyline, realized that it explained why non-cleric PCs should choose a deity/be invested in all the lovely gods they created and for which they wrote so much fiction, and kept it. Gary liked him some Appendix N novels* where enforcing a balance between the forces of good and evil (actually probably law and chaos), made it a big thing in 1e, Weis and Hickman noticed it benefited stories they wanted to tell and ran with it. None of this stuff was designed to pass more than casual scrutiny and the large scale moral or existential questions/implications they might raise were not broadly considered. D&D is a game inspired by pulp fiction and hammer horror movies, and lives up to the genres in spades (including the part where it doesn't worry too much about the messy details).
*I forget which they would be.

The Great Wheel cosmology and the default D&D notions of the afterlife are pretty much garbage. The Wall is just one more thing added to the pile. It could be made into an interesting focal point for a campaign but can otherwise be ignored or changed as needed.

The note about ‘casual scrutiny’ is spot on. If you want something coherent and interesting I would design it into your own setting. FR has been saddled with a large amount of lore and baggage over the years and its convoluted patchwork of setting details are either a draw or a turnoff depending on what you like in a game world.

Just skimming this makes my eyes hurt: https://forgottenrealms.fandom.com/wiki/Afterlife

LibraryOgre

2020-10-27, 02:15 PM

Could you elaborate more on what constitutes rejection here?

Plenty of editions have terrible fates for those who fool around with loyalty and gods, so that part I’m all clear on. Though it does leave me wondering if the wall could conceivably be tied to a vestige it at least indirectly.

The 2e definition was

Those who firmly deny any faith or have only given lip service most of their lives and never truly believed are known as the Faithless after death. They are formed into a living wall around the City of Strife—Kelemvor, the new lord of the dead, may soon rename it—in the realm of the dead in Oinos in the Gray Waste and left there until they dissolve. The unearthly greenish mold that holds the wall together eventually destroys them. The False, those who intentionally betrayed a faith they believed in and to which they made a personal commitment, are relegated to eternal punishment in the City of Strife after their case is ruled upon by Kelemvor in the Crystal Spire (Kelemvor's abode in the City of Strife).

So, the only "Faithless" are those who are atheists in a realm of verifiable deities. The False are those who intentionally betrayed a faith... but that arguably requires them to have not acquired a new patron, who could intercede on their behalf.

noob

2020-10-27, 02:25 PM

LibraryOgre

2020-10-27, 02:49 PM

but there was at some point a god which decided "if nobody wants a soul I claim it and punish or reward it depending on its behaviour" and then that god got punished and prevented from doing that "for favouring good too much and possibly causing the extinction of the evil gods".
So the wall is not still here because there is souls nobody would claim: there was a god willing to claim all the souls other gods did not want and to dispatch to gods the souls they wanted and Ao could have told "yes it is fine as long as you do not punish the bad guys you claim" and thus prevented the need to use the wall again.

Wouldn't that be more or less the function of a God of the Dead? Making sure that only the correct deity claimed the soul, and figuring out something to do with those who are unclaimed?

noob

2020-10-27, 02:51 PM

Wouldn't that be more or less the function of a God of the Dead? Making sure that only the correct deity claimed the soul, and figuring out something to do with those who are unclaimed?

they were and still are the god of the dead of the forgotten realms: kelemvor.
But AO placed their veto and told "no you can not reward or punish the unclaimed souls and you must send them all to the wall"

Willie the Duck

2020-10-27, 03:04 PM

The note about ‘casual scrutiny’ is spot on. If you want something coherent and interesting I would design it into your own setting. FR has been saddled with a large amount of lore and baggage over the years and its convoluted patchwork of setting details are either a draw or a turnoff depending on what you like in a game world.

Well, I mean, that's where I land on this. I mentioned the pulp stories and hammer horror for a reason. Mary Shelley wrote a complex novel that explores what it means to create life or to be a created life and having to forge your own path through the world etc. etc. etc. Hammer Horror turned that into a guy with bolts in his neck lumbering around. D&D comes right from that vein and never left. Most of FR is not unlike the Battletech novels, excepting that some people take it more seriously (so, maybe more like the various Star Wars/Trek novels). It was never meant for the level of rigor to which people sometimes hold it.

Lord Raziere

2020-10-27, 03:32 PM

Exactly this. It seems like a strange detail to be concerned about, compared with everything else going on.

The concept that DnD was built on horror is the first I'm hearing of this. while I don't doubt its true, I don't play horror games, as I don't come to DnD for that kind of feeling. I come for the action and heroism. now I may have to reconsider.

Millstone85

2020-10-27, 03:57 PM

Those who firmly deny any faith or have only given lip service most of their lives and never truly believed are known as the Faithless after death.So, the only "Faithless" are those who are atheists in a realm of verifiable deities.I don't know about that reading.

Say you ask someone in Faerûn about their faith and they open to you. "Most of my family is Lathanderian, with quite a few Selûnites on my mother's side. Of course, we honor other gods as appropriate: Chauntea for a good harvest, Tempus so that our nation's defenders be victorious, and so on. Talos? When a storm is upon us, yes, we pray to appease him. Who doesn't? But me, personally, I don't really have a preference. There are just so many gods, each so powerful in their domain, and I guess I just have never felt that special connection I keep hearing about."

The character does not put in question the existence of Lathander, nor the fact that Lathander is a god. And if they became a truly devout follower of the Morninglord, they would not be expected to denounce any of the others as myths or false gods. At most, their new faith in Lathander would give them the nerve to want none of Talos' mercy.

But if they were to die now, would any psychopomp scouring the Fugue Plane see their soul and think "Eh, good enough"?

Mechalich

2020-10-27, 04:06 PM

I don't know about that reading.

Say you ask someone in Faerûn about their faith and they open to you. "Most of my family is Lathanderian, with quite a few Selûnites on my mother's side. Of course, we honor other gods as appropriate: Chauntea for a good harvest, Tempus so that our nation's defenders be victorious, and so on. Talos? When a storm is upon us, yes, we pray to appease him. Who doesn't? But me, personally, I don't really have a preference. There are just so many gods, each so powerful in their domain, and I guess I just have never felt that special connection I keep hearing about."

The character does not put in question the existence of Lathander, nor the fact that Lathander is a god. And if they became a truly devout follower of the Morninglord, they would not be expected to denounce any of the others as myths or false gods. At most, their new faith in Lathander would give them the nerve to want none of Talos' mercy.

But if they were to die now, would any psychopomp scouring the Fugue Plane see their soul and think "Eh, good enough"?

Yes, because that's how the system is supposed to work. Wavering back and forth and honoring various gods at different times without committing to a cleric-like level of devotion to a single one does not a faithless make. For example, many male drow are notable for absolutely hating Lloth and wishing she'd choke on her own spider venom and never offering her anything but spite, but they still get taken to the Demonweb Pits to spend eternity in the Spider Queen's glory all the same.

It's not easy to be Faithless in the Realms (at least under the 2e version, which should be considered the best, because in general 2e fluff was considered far more seriously than later editions, which mostly just tweaked the 2e baseline). It required explicitly rejecting the authority of the gods or outright denying their existence in a world where they verifiably exist and demonstrably intervene. Heck 'Wall' of the Faithless might be overstating the case. Personally I figure the Faithless occur at something like a one in a million frequency - which means that only around 20 people end up in the Wall each year (assuming around 1 billion people on Toril and an average 50 year lifespan).

Palanan

2020-10-27, 04:18 PM

Originally Posted by Vahnavoi
This said, what people often seem to forget is that D&D has always had a strong undercurrent of horror in it. Survival horror, gothic horror, body horror, religious horror, cosmic horror, it's all been there practically from the start.

Originally Posted by Willie the Duck
D&D is a game inspired by pulp fiction and hammer horror movies….

For the record, these are the folks who brought up the horror aspect, and I’m a little surprised to see myself being quoted as if I originated the topic.

That said, I also don’t disagree with them. I would add that while the game also owes a great deal to Tolkien, even some aspects of Lord of the Rings have elements of horror to them, and that surely filtered into the DNA of the game.

.

Quertus

2020-10-27, 05:01 PM

Most of my characters have, as/among their goals, "kill & replace the gods". Or, perhaps, merely have that act as a necessary step in their goal of "fix the world".

The Wall of the Faithless is one of the best reasons IMO for hating the gods and planning mass deicide.

Nonetheless, I *have* seen people defend the Wall of Shame before; senility willing, I might search the forum for those posts and QUOTE them here.

LibraryOgre

2020-10-27, 05:37 PM

Telok

2020-10-27, 05:40 PM

I don't know about that reading.
...
But if they were to die now, would any psychopomp scouring the Fugue Plane see their soul and think "Eh, good enough"?

Yes. Because when you're feverently praying that a tornado doesn't turn you into a splat on the landscape you're being pretty darn believing. The fact that the person dosen't burn with total devotion doesn't mean that they don't believe. They know the gods exist, perform the rites to appease them, they're fine.

Mechalich

2020-10-27, 08:01 PM

NorthernPhoenix

2020-10-28, 05:11 PM

I'm not super passionate about the specific details of the Wall of the Faithless, but i think it's as good a contrivance as any to tell people "please don't make/play as an atheist in this setting where the gods are super real, even if you are one in real life".

noob

2020-10-28, 05:16 PM

NorthernPhoenix

2020-10-28, 05:17 PM

But the wall is The reason I will play an atheist if I ever play in the forgotten realms.

To me that seems excessively contrarian.

noob

2020-10-28, 05:20 PM

To me that seems excessively contrarian.

Had they made one deity not be extremely awful(through inaction against the wall and awful actions) then I would pick that deity.
Kelemvor is inactive against the wall and now consider they were wrong to oppose it and so is sadly not a god I would have one of my characters pick.
There is no good god to pick: all of them not only did awful actions but also are not trying anything against the wall or actively support the wall and in all the cases they all think the wall is a good thing now which is why none of my characters would ever pick a FR god.
Essentially the way the gods managed the wall makes them all even more incredibly awful than they were.
If one dnd character did behave the way a FR god behave a normal gm would write CE on their alignment sheet and probably kick the player playing it out of their table for excessive murderhoboness or for them being a backstabbing betrayer.
The walls adds up to their awfullness to a point it is critical and that they no longer feel likes relatable beings to me.

Warder

2020-10-28, 05:24 PM

Had they made one deity not be extremely awful(through inaction against the wall and awful actions) then I would pick that deity.
Kelemvor is inactive against the wall and now consider they were wrong to oppose it and so is sadly not a god I would have one of my characters pick.
There is no good god to pick: all of them not only did awful actions but also are not trying anything against the wall or actively support the wall and in all the cases they all think the wall is a good thing now which is why none of my characters would ever pick a FR god.

Your character would probably have no idea the wall even exists. People in the Realms don't worship the gods because of the threat of the wall if they don't, they worship because doing so can actually impact their lives, for the better.

Keltest

2020-10-28, 05:25 PM

To me that seems excessively contrarian.

Agreed. Unlike the Cataclysm, which is an active attack against logic and morality, the Wall of the Faithless mostly just is. I dont really get people being actively offended by it. All the other afterlives eventually eat away at your soul as well.

NorthernPhoenix

2020-10-28, 05:25 PM

Had they made one deity not be extremely awful(through inaction against the wall and awful actions) then I would pick that deity.
Kelemvor is inactive against the wall and now consider they were wrong to oppose it and so is sadly not a god I would have one of my characters pick.
There is no good god to pick: all of them not only did awful actions but also are not trying anything against the wall or actively support the wall and in all the cases they all think the wall is a good thing now which is why none of my characters would ever pick a FR god.

Most people in-universe don't even know about the concept. They just pray to any god that is relevant to the culture they were raised in because it's as natural to them as eating or taking a dump. You have to go out of your way to create an atheist character in this setting, and the reasoning seems to be entirely ooc unless every character you make is some kind of sage of the greater divinities out of the gate.

noob

2020-10-28, 05:27 PM

Your character would probably have no idea the wall even exists. People in the Realms don't worship the gods because of the threat of the wall if they don't, they worship because doing so can actually impact their lives, for the better.

The reason it impacts their lives for the better is that the gods would be sent down by ao to kill all the people if they stopped being worshipped.(the last time ao did see the gods did not care about mortal worship and were not getting any ao did send the gods to the earth and during that time all of the gods went full murderhobo)
It is a "protection" racket managed by the gods.

My character might have no idea the gods did wrong things(although it probably can be known just with a knowledge religion check) but I was saying that I(aka me) would not want my character to worship an absolutely awful creature.

NorthernPhoenix

2020-10-28, 05:30 PM

The reason it impacts their lives for the better is that the gods would be sent down by ao to kill all the people if they stopped being worshipped.
It is a "protection" racket managed by the gods.

The latter part is sort of true (the gods actually do help people though, no matter why) but the vast majority of people in-universe neither know nor care about this. They just live their lives, and in these lives not praying to the super-real and easily proven so gods is as unnatural as trying to live life without eating on our earth.

noob

2020-10-28, 05:34 PM

The latter part is sort of true (the gods actually do help people though, no matter why) but the vast majority of people in-universe neither know nor care about this. They just live their lives, and in these lives not praying to the super-real and easily proven so gods is as unnatural as trying to live life without eating on our earth.

Would you want to consider as an example of how you would want to behave someone who killed thousands or betrayed their best friends or represent ideals that are radically opposed to yours?
Because I would not pick as an example of how I should behave such an individual: the best I could do would be presenting the facade of respect and hiding the fact I do not want to be close to them.

Warder

2020-10-28, 05:36 PM

The only reason it impacts their lives for the better is that the gods would be sent down by ao to kill all the people if they stopped being worshipped.
It is a "protection" racket managed by the gods.

Sure, in some way it is. But the thing about the gods in the Forgotten Realms is that they're people, and fallible. They're not manifestations of their alignment. At least as of the Time of Troubles, most of them seemed to not even have a clear idea of who Ao really was, or of the "big picture". The ones who claim to be Good are, for the most part. They do good things. If a devout farmer has a bad year where their barn burns to the ground and the drought takes their crops, the chances of a cleric of Chauntea feeling an urge to wander in that direction increases. At the same time, even the good gods have done awful things, like Labelas Enoreth straight up murdering people because they annoyed him during the Time of Troubles.

But, to nearly everyone in the Forgotten Realms, that isn't known or simply doesn't matter. They know that the gods exist, they intervene and your life improves if you're devout. That there's a soul-eating Wall waiting for you in the afterlife if you don't simply isn't part of their relationship with the gods, at all.

Edit:

My character might have no idea the gods did wrong things(although it probably can be known just with a knowledge religion check) but I was saying that I(aka me) would not want my character to worship an absolutely awful creature.

I get that. I don't play the game like that, but I get it. My characters know what they know, and I know what I know. I've had my characters worship some truly vile gods, but that's okay because it's just my character. I have no issue with them worshipping hypocritical gods either, for that same reason.

noob

2020-10-28, 05:39 PM

Sure, in some way it is. But the thing about the gods in the Forgotten Realms is that they're people, and fallible. They're not manifestations of their alignment. At least as of the Time of Troubles, most of them seemed to not even have a clear idea of who Ao really was, or of the "big picture". The ones who claim to be Good are, for the most part. They do good things. If a devout farmer has a bad year where their barn burns to the ground and the drought takes their crops, the chances of a cleric of Chauntea feeling an urge to wander in that direction increases. At the same time, even the good gods have done awful things, like Labelas Enoreth straight up murdering people because they annoyed him during the Time of Troubles.

But, to nearly everyone in the Forgotten Realms, that isn't known or simply doesn't matter. They know that the gods exist, they intervene and your life improves if you're devout. That there's a soul-eating Wall waiting for you in the afterlife if you don't simply isn't part of their relationship with the gods, at all.
So the wall of the faithless is doubly inefficient at preventing atheistic (as in they consider the gods are not actually gods worthy of worship but rather very strong creatures) characters.
1: The characters does not know it exists so they would not fear the punishment of worshipping no god.
2: The wall actively makes players angry at the gods.

It is the opposite of what would be needed for the wall to encourage not being atheistic: have the wall be here against the will of the gods and have most gods opposing it(thus making it a simple way to make the players respect the gods for their cosmic fight) and have most of the characters know about the wall thus justifying characters not wanting to be atheistic

Warder

2020-10-28, 05:45 PM

So the wall of the faithless is doubly inefficient at preventing atheistic (as in they consider the gods are not actually gods worthy of worship but rather very strong creatures) characters.
1: The characters does not know it exists so they would not fear the punishment of worshipping no god.
2: The wall actively makes players angry at the gods.

I dunno, I don't really accept either of those premises (though I wasn't the one who said it was a way to make characters not be atheists, btw).

For 1, I think it doesn't really matter anyway. People in FR worship the gods, that's how it is. If a PC wants to make an atheist, I doubt the player would be deterred by something so abstract as the potential of the Wall having an effect on their afterlife.

And for 2, I don't think it makes players angry. I get that you are, and I get that some others here are as well, but I think most players simply don't care, or don't care to use meta-knowledge to decide religion for their characters, at least.

NorthernPhoenix

2020-10-28, 05:48 PM

So the wall of the faithless is doubly inefficient at preventing atheistic (as in they consider the gods are not actually gods worthy of worship but rather very strong creatures) characters.
1: The characters does not know it exists so they would not fear the punishment of worshipping no god.
2: The wall actively makes players angry at the gods.

It is the opposite of what would be needed for the wall to encourage not being atheistic: have the wall be here against the will of the gods and have most gods opposing it(thus making it a simple way to make the players respect the gods for their cosmic fight) and have most of the characters know about the wall thus justifying characters not wanting to be atheistic

The gods don't really struggle with atheists in number in the Forgotten Realms. If someone isn't worshipping you (a god) they're almost certainly worshipping a different one. The wall mostly exists as a rare and special dunk on rare and special people in universe, and a out of universe as dunk on people who insist on making atheist characters in a setting defined by the gods and the relationships between their mortal worshippers.

It's not like you have to be super religious either. Answering "who is your characters favorite god?" with "The war one duh, I'm a barbarian" rather than "none, I'm an ATHEIST who defies and denies all "gods"" is sufficient to put you in the home free.

noob

2020-10-28, 05:52 PM

The gods don't really struggle with atheists in number in the Forgotten Realms. If someone isn't worshipping you (a god) they're almost certainly worshipping a different one. The wall mostly exists as a rare and special dunk on rare and special people in universe, and a out of universe as dunk on people who insist on making atheist characters in a setting defined by the gods and the relationships between their mortal worshippers.

Except that most FR people would want to be atheists: the proof of that is that when kelemvor told "if someone is an atheist they will get to be judged by me instead of being sent to the wall of the faithless" it caused a massive amount of people becoming atheists and good winning over evil in the setting.
You are saying things in contradiction with the lore: people in FR wants to be atheists as soon as a god tells them "If you are atheist you will be rewarded or punished in function of your goodness" while people also knows that if they worship a god they will be rewarded too.
Unless you are telling me the good gods have afterlives so awfully bad that kelemvor's afterlife for atheists was better than all the others including the afterlive kelemvor grants to its own worshippers.

So no the true default is that people in FR wants to be atheists if it grants them a cool afterlife program (if and only if they are good) according to the lore.
So FR people knows about their afterlives options and about the wall or else the speech of kelemvor would not have had such an influance.

NorthernPhoenix

2020-10-28, 05:55 PM

Except that most FR people would want to be atheists: the proof of that is that when kelemvor told "if someone is an atheist they will get to be judged by me instead of being sent to the wall of the faithless" it caused a massive amount of people becoming atheists and good winning over evil in the setting.
You are saying things in contradiction with the lore: people in FR wants to be atheists as soon as a god tells them "If you are atheist you will be rewarded or punished in function of your goodness" while people also knows that if they worship a god they will be rewarded too.
Unless you are telling me the good gods have afterlives so awfully bad that kelemvor's afterlife for atheists was better than all the others including the afterlive kelemvor grants to its own worshippers.

That's certainly not how i interpret things.

noob

2020-10-28, 05:57 PM

That's certainly not how i interpret things.

Then explain why AO told that it was bad that kelemvor was making good side triumph if his afterlife program did not actually change in any way the worshipping habits and behavioural habits of the people?

Kelemvor, however, was more lenient on those Faithless and False who were virtuous and honorable in life, while the ones who were cowardly or capricious were severely punished. Those souls judged as noble were sent to the then merrier and heaven-like parts in the City of Death, such as the Singing City or Pax Cloister, while for thieves and cowards there were hell-like parts of the City such as the Acid Swamps.[21]

As a result, honorable and brave mortals no longer feared death, and recklessly threw their lives away, trusting in Kelemvor's judgment rather than in benevolent gods. The cowardly and crafty mortals became too fearful to do much, lest they die and find themselves before Kelemvor.
so yes it is crystal clear that people decided to be false and faithless because their afterlife options were better according to the lore since kelemvor did judge only the faithless and false souls differently.
(the other souls are managed by their own gods)

So people spontaneously becoming false or faithless all of a sudden when they stop fearing the wall is a thing.

Keltest

2020-10-28, 06:02 PM

Then explain why AO told that it was bad that kelemvor was making good side triumph if his afterlife program did not actually change in any way the worshipping habits and behavioural habits of the people?

Its been a bit since ive read that book, but it wasnt Ao who forced Kelemvor to change, but the other gods. They claimed that by only placing good souls into a desirable afterlife, he was failing his duties as the god of the dead. He was judging them based on his own convictions rather than the actual system that he was supposed to be using. Ditto with Mystra favoring good aligned magic users and denying power to evil aligned ones.

Vahnavoi

2020-10-28, 06:04 PM

... but i think it's as good a contrivance as any to tell people "please don't make/play as an atheist in this setting where the gods are super real, even if you are one in real life".

Eh?

That's not the function of the Wall. It's not even a function. Explanation for what happens to particular sort of people in context of a setting, even if negative, does not constitute a request for players to abstain from playing such characters. In fact, since the Wall is an afterlife and most characters are played while they are alive, its existence doesn't even particularly discourage playing atheists, because you can play entire games with such characters without it coming up.

noob

2020-10-28, 06:05 PM

Its been a bit since ive read that book, but it wasnt Ao who forced Kelemvor to change, but the other gods. They claimed that by only placing good souls into a desirable afterlife, he was failing his duties as the god of the dead. He was judging them based on his own convictions rather than the actual system that he was supposed to be using. Ditto with Mystra favoring good aligned magic users and denying power to evil aligned ones.

I added a second part to my previous post including a quote from here:
https://forgottenrealms.fandom.com/wiki/Kelemvor#Godhood

Keltest

2020-10-28, 06:10 PM

I added a second part to my previous post including a quote from here:
https://forgottenrealms.fandom.com/wiki/Kelemvor#Godhood

You should keep reading then. Kelemvor changed himself voluntarily as a consequence of the negative judgement of the other gods.

noob

2020-10-28, 06:24 PM

You should keep reading then. Kelemvor changed himself voluntarily as a consequence of the negative judgement of the other gods.

And it does not matter: it says mortals including the evil ones(for mysterious reasons) suddenly became faithless or false as soon as kelemvor started judging differently the faithless and false.
It is not contradicted by the rest of the text.

Keltest

2020-10-28, 06:27 PM

And it does not matter: it says mortals including the evil ones(for mysterious reasons) suddenly became faithless or false as soon as kelemvor started judging differently the faithless and false.
It is not contradicted by the rest of the text.

It doesnt though. It says that they had faith in kelemvor and his judgement.

noob

2020-10-28, 06:31 PM

It doesnt though. It says that they had faith in kelemvor and his judgement.

Then why would the evil ones be scared of kelemvor judgement if they were not going to be judged by this system of kelemvor anyway due to worshipping other gods?
It seems incoherent with them not being faithless or false.

Lord Raziere

2020-10-28, 06:59 PM

It's probably worth mentioning that, prior to the Time of Troubles in FR, essentially all the deities, including the nominally good ones, just left their dead worshippers on the Fugue Plane to sit there because there was nothing in the divine system that obligated, or even suggested, that they do anything else with them. At the same time, they were pretty much explicitly forgiven from caring about the fate of the Faithless, as those who chose not to worship anyone were completely outside their purview. Instead, it fell to various gods of death to decide what to do with them and apparently Myrkul came up with the idea of the Wall of the Faithless upon becoming the god of death, which only happened a few millennia in the past (Myrkul apparently lived as a mortal sometime during the Age of Netheril). Presumably Jergal, the god of death prior to that, did something else with the Faithless. If the Wall of Faithless only existed for ~4000 years, it's entirely possible that only around 100,000 people have ever been mortared into it.

Which is 100,000 people too many.

There is no justifiable reason why the gods should have the power to throw into a wall just because you made a decision that hurts no one that you had no way of knowing would get you punished, no matter how few people made it.

If someone had the power to kill you for saying the phrase "explosiontastically cogniferous" it would still be wrong, even if you were the only person to ever make the mistake of saying it.

There is no greater good being served here, there is no gain for this cost. the estimate is meaningless.

the only people harmed by you not believing in gods are the gods themselves. its pure selfish pettiness. which makes sense for evil gods, but not good ones. and here the thing: I once heard that the wall of the faithless is a good reason to make a deal with devils to go to their afterlife instead, because at least then you'll at least be a devil capable of doing things and taking actions to benefit yourself rather than being tortured in a wall for eternity. its literally preferable to rule in hell than end up on the wall, because hell is technically a kinder place. perhaps the reason why so few end up the wall may be that the souls who found out about it would rather take the deal with opportunistic devils who set up shop to recruit them after seeing what lies in store for them if they be faithless. if no one else is going to snatch them up after all, why not? and why wouldn't the souls take them up on the offer, they see the good gods allow this thing to exist, why believe in them? they're clearly failing if they can't prevent such suffering, and at least the devils are honest about how unfair the system is. and if you can't be good, the only thing left to be is unfair in your favor.

Anymage

2020-10-28, 07:32 PM

#1: Meet Roy Greenhilt (https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0490.html). He knows that gods exist, passively worships a pantheon, but his attitude boils down to "I'll stay out of their hair and hope they stay out of mine". This is not the same as picking a patron deity, so Roy winds up as a piece of masonry after he dies. Is Roy's attitude a reasonable one in a fantasy world? Should that one element of his belief override everything else in the interview?

I get that the Doylist reason for The Wall is to encourage players to fill out the "patron deity" space on their sheet instead of leaving it blank. It's just bad design on multiple levels to try and encourage or discourage player behavior by holding a threat over the character after they leave play.

#2: It's already been touched on that as per the writers, people would actively stop worshiping the gods who cosmically back whatever principles those people deeply believe in if they didn't have the threat of The Wall over their heads. In the real world people can donate a decent amount of time and money to causes they believe in. (Although nothing other than opportunity cost keeps them from also donating to other causes they also believe in.) That the writers insist that people would stop doing so if they had the option if being judged on their actions implies heavy handed authorial justification, and/or an acknowledgement that the gods are not worthy of worship if not under duress.

#3: Yes, I get that pure atheism (in the sense of "gods do not exist") in the realms would be like not believing in zebras in our world. Athar (https://1d4chan.org/wiki/Athar)-like hate would also be unlikely, although possible. (Although active mistreatment by gods would make this more likely. Thus the reaction of some real-world readers that the gods' threat against nonbelievers makes them much more likely to take the Athar stance if they were ported to the realms.)

If I were to take a transparent expy of a real world religious figure and make them the villain of my latest adventure, the fact that no members of said religion happened to live in the realms would not prevent the adventure from being a blatant slam against that religion and any believers who happened to read the adventure. The authors doubling down so hard and so often against a take relevant to many real world readers (lack of) religious belief is not excused by the viewpoints of people living in a fictional world. Honestly, the whole insistence on the in-universe Rightness and Justice of the wall in-universe is worse than just the brainfart that thought its existence was a good idea in the first place.

RifleAvenger

2020-10-28, 07:49 PM

I once heard that the wall of the faithless is a good reason to make a deal with devils to go to their afterlife instead, because at least then you'll at least be a devil capable of doing things and taking actions to benefit yourself rather than being tortured in a wall for eternity. its literally preferable to rule in hell than end up on the wall, because hell is technically a kinder place. perhaps the reason why so few end up the wall may be that the souls who found out about it would rather take the deal with opportunistic devils who set up shop to recruit them after seeing what lies in store for them if they be faithless. if no one else is going to snatch them up after all, why not? Demons, for their part, can steal souls out of the wall, drag them back to the Abyss, and forcibly convert the souls into demons. Regardless of their alignment in life.

Think about how ****ed that is. Alternative reality Drizzt, who decided all gods blew after his experience with Lloth, but accomplished everything else he did in life and died CG, would have ended up in the Wall. Then Lloth could have sent some servants over to drag his soul before her after all. While Kelemvor shrugs and the "Good" gods look on.

Meanwhile, are the Chaotic Good outsiders doing the same? Freeing souls from the Wall because screw the rules? No? Only Evil is allowed to take advantage of the Wall? Well then...

and why wouldn't the souls take them up on the offer, they see the good gods allow this thing to exist, why believe in them? they're clearly failing if they can't prevent such suffering, and at least the devils are honest about how unfair the system is. and if you can't be good, the only thing left to be is unfair in your favor.

This. The Wall undermines the Goodness of the Good gods, and despite some people saying that's on purpose, I disagree. Forgotten Realms is heroic fantasy more often than cosmic horror. The Wall twists that at the root by painting the Good gods both as being ok with something so terrible and allowing their Evil enemies to exploit it to their advantage. It's either an awful throwback to the Satanic Scare, an awful attempt to force players to choose a patron diety, some writer's "Take That!" to atheists, or obsolete kludge. None of those are reasons to retain it.

Honestly, the whole insistence on the in-universe Rightness and Justice of the wall in-universe is worse than just the brainfart that thought its existence was a good idea in the first place. The person who thought it should exist in the first place made it as a Very Bad ThingTM that Myrkul did, which should be destroyed. And it was. Then the whole debacle that invented Ao brought it BACK for no clear reasons beyond the unknowable jackass declaring it was necessary for reasons he wouldn't explain.

NorthernPhoenix

2020-10-28, 08:02 PM

Mechalich

2020-10-28, 10:35 PM

My understanding is that, at least in all but the most strict takes on it, you don't need a cleric-lite patron deity. You literally just need to not deny the gods. Passively worshiping the pantheon you were brought up in like any normal person is generally enough. And I also imagine that even if he was in danger of being put in the wall in that interview for some reason, managing to answer anything other than "no one" on the final question of "but who is your favorite god?" would instantly clear him. If saying "no one, in fact they all suck" even in such a circumstance is so important it overrides everything else about him, only then do i think he'd have a chance of having to deal with the wall.

You don't even need a favorite god - you just need to acknowledge divine authority. Again, many of the members of Faerun's evil societies hate their deities, spit upon them, and wish them eternal doom...and still end up in their realms after death.

The person who thought it should exist in the first place made it as a Very Bad ThingTM that Myrkul did, which should be destroyed. And it was. Then the whole debacle that invented Ao brought it BACK for no clear reasons beyond the unknowable jackass declaring it was necessary for reasons he wouldn't explain.

The Wall was specifically used as a plot point in the novel Waterdeep (it, adn the whole concept of Faithless and False, may also have been first mentioned at this point, I'm not sure) - the third book in the 1989 Avatar series of novels that resolved the whole Time of Troubles metaplot event - primarily as a threat to hold over the character of Adon, who had become so disgusted by Time of Troubles events he'd rejected the gods outright. Waterdeep was written by Troy Denning, an author who never considers the implications of anything beyond its immediate character impact. This cannot be stressed enough, there are multiple fantasy franchises littered with continuity wreckage because of Denning's failure to consider the broader consequences of stuff he writes. Denning was also responsible for the truly bizarre Kelemvor stuff in Crucible: the Trial of Cyric the Mad that's also been mentioned in this thread.

Even so, Kelemvor supposedly changed the wall to something different at the end of Crucible, though 5e apparently changed it back to the 'mortared in' version in Sword Coast Adventurer's guide (which is probably a result of insufficient lore mastery on the part of those authors).

hamishspence

2020-10-29, 12:24 AM

Kelemvor supposedly changed the wall to something different at the end of Crucible, though 5e apparently changed it back to the 'mortared in' version in Sword Coast Adventurer's guide (which is probably a result of insufficient lore mastery on the part of those authors).

I think that even in the 3e FRCS book (and Deities & Demigods) it's described the same way as in Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide.

FRCS:

All of the Faithless receive the same punishment: They form a living wall around the city of Judgment, held together by a supernatural green greenish mold. This mold prevents them from escaping the wall and eventually breaks down their substance until the soul and its consciousness are dissolved.

So, whatever Kelemvor did at the end of Crucible, it didn't actually change the nature of the Wall to be different from Myrkul's version.

My understanding is that, at least in all but the most strict takes on it, you don't need a cleric-lite patron deity. You literally just need to not deny the gods. Passively worshiping the pantheon you were brought up in like any normal person is generally enough.

You don't even need a favorite god - you just need to acknowledge divine authority.

Deities & Demigods explicitly stated that it worked this way - the faithless actively oppose worship.

Deities & Demigods:

In the Forgotten Realms campaign setting, for example, the souls of those with no patron deity are consigned to wander the Fugue Plain until they are either taken in by a merciful deity or captured by demon or devil raiders and drafted into service in their eternal war. The souls of the "faithless," those who actively oppose the worship of the gods, are bound into the living wall around the City of Judgment, from which they can never return.
FRCS said that characters who "only paid lip service without truly believing" were Faithless though.

FRCS:

While most souls wander the Fugue Plane until their deity calls them, the Faithless and the False are compelled to enter the city of Judgment and be judged by Kelemvor. The Faithless firmly denied any faith or only gave lip service to the gods for most of their lives without truly believing. The False intentionally betrayed a faith they believed in and to which they had made a personal commitment.

Vahnavoi

2020-10-29, 01:50 AM

Anymage

2020-10-29, 04:05 AM

1) Roy''s not a Forgotten Realms character...

There are clear differences between the stickverse and the realms. I don't expect a character in the latter to know what skill points are. Still, would the outlook that Roy expresses in the comic I linked be too out of place in another generic fantasy setting? If not, I think using him to explain a viewpoint is relevant.

(I will grant that I may have misread/misremembered the difference between faithless and simply not having a patron deity. If all that happens to Roy is having to wander the fugue plane for a while until he can catch up with someone representing one of the northern gods, that's a lot more okay. It still has some very dumb bits, like people defecting from the worship of the gods en masse once they realize that they can be judged on their actions, but it isn't as over the top as punishing noncommittal religious apathy.)

2) It's a pretty common trope in real people's beliefs that some people will only behave properly (for whatever value of "proper") under threat of punishment even if there'd be other good reasons to behave. To a degree, we can show this true of real people, simply because not all people think further than their nose. Hence, some people abandoning faith because they're no longer being punished for being faithless is not particularly heavy-handed, because it's plausible. It still relies on authorial justification, but so do all other interactions of psychology with invented literary constructs.

It wasn't just a handful of stray souls that bucked the system. It was enough to cause major problems.

I'm going to stay well away from the topic of whether a majority of people need the threat of punishment in order to stay in line, because that underpins a lot of very touchy subjects that could get get heated very quickly. I will say that works with such a strong philosophical bias are often quite controversial and often do get a lot of people heated. If that was the conscious intent of writing in the wall, the stance of the anti- side is completely understandable and expected.

3) This part of your argument boils down to "I know now how my conservative grandma feels about my black metal album collection". Congratulations. Either go apologize to granny or realize that insensitivity towards some worldview is not in itself a cause for concern or even good critique of fiction.

All I can do here is again point out that the fact that people within the setting don't care is not any defense against the fact that readers in the real world might care a lot. Discussions on related topics have generally devolved to the point of needing to be locked, so this is all I'm going to say on the matter.

noob

2020-10-29, 04:15 AM

@Anymage

1) Roy''s not a Forgotten Realms character. If you want to play for sympathy, at least see the trouble of finding a sympathetic Forgotten Realms character who ended up in the Wall.

Also, Roy is best friends with and literally employs a cleric for divinely empowered healing, protection and success in war. I'd say that counts as lay worship and Thor could claim his soul easy peasy, if these were Forgotten Realms characters. If you disagree, then we can conclude that Roy'd go the Wall for being a hypocrite, because he's not actually very good at staying "out of the hair of" deities himself. :smalltongue:

2) It's a pretty common trope in real people's beliefs that some people will only behave properly (for whatever value of "proper") under threat of punishment even if there'd be other good reasons to behave. To a degree, we can show this true of real people, simply because not all people think further than their nose. Hence, some people abandoning faith because they're no longer being punished for being faithless is not particularly heavy-handed, because it's plausible. It still relies on authorial justification, but so do all other interactions of psychology with invented literary constructs.

3) This part of your argument boils down to "I know now how my conservative grandma feels about my black metal album collection". Congratulations. Either go apologize to granny or realize that insensitivity towards some worldview is not in itself a cause for concern or even good critique of fiction.

But we are not criticizing the fiction nor the authors of it and instead we are saying we would not want to support as moral the wall or the gods of that setting because they represent bad people and a bad thing.
Saying "Dexter is an awful person" is not a critic of the author of the Dexter series nor saying that the series is bad: you can like that series about a murderer but still think the murderer is a bad person.
So it is not the same thing as your grandma parallel: most of the authors probably did not think the wall was truly a good thing and that it should exist in real life. (and if one of them did think that having the wall in real life was a good thing then maybe I would not want to spend time with that individual but none of them are my grandma so I have no obligation to meet any of them)
And you can like a fiction with awful things in it.
So your parallel does not makes sense: the wall of the faithless is not my grandma and most of the authors of that setting would not want the wall to exist in real life and keep it in the setting not out of thinking it is the best and goodest thing ever but out of traditionalism. (Some will write "it is the best and goodest thing" because when they write the setting they realise they are writing for a fictional world with a morality system that is entirely alien to them)

About people becoming faithless and false instantly when there is no punishment please note it included evil people who still risked being punished and who still preferred to behave and risk punishment from kelemvor over worshipping any god so it is not just the threat of punishment: it is also the size of the punishment and the odds of it and they are willing to take huge risks of having an huge punishment and also restrain their lifestyle(do less evil acts) rather than worship a god.

So faithlessness/falseness is so attractive that people who stills risks having a punishment and can reduce that risk only through behaving nicely will still prefer those over the alternative.(so it is not just a matter of "no punishment then I will do whatever I want" it is "I want to do this enough for being willing to change my lifestyle and to still risk a punishment in order to do it")

People from that setting prefer to follow the rule "behave good or be punished" over "worship a god or be punished" even when they know they have an hard time behaving good and that the best they can do is not behaving too evil while according to you an individual can worship a god without being even aware of it (so according to you doing the second thing is the easy choice)

Roy did not pick a patron deity and anyway he is in a setting where there is many gods that are not awful persons or are even people with good intentions: many of them actually care about the people in the worlds they create.
Had it been FR gods the world would have been nuked after nearly 100% of the gods voted for its annihilation within a span of 0.3 seconds due to how much they care about themselves over caring for the people.

kalkyrie

2020-10-29, 05:50 AM

But we are not criticizing the fiction nor the authors of it and instead we are saying we would not want to support as moral the wall or the gods of that setting because they represent bad people and a bad thing.
Saying "Dexter is an awful person" is not a critic of the author of the Dexter series nor saying that the series is bad: you can like that series about a murderer but still think the murderer is a bad person.
[Edit for brevity]

Actually many of us *are* criticizing the fiction and the authors specifically.
This is for two reasons;

1: Appearing to 'push' a political belief by writing stories assuming it as fact.
2: Lack of internal logic in the fiction.

1. As you say, Dexter is an awful person. However the series 'Dexter' doesn't ever try to convince us that Dexter is a paragon of righteousness.
This means that we can enjoy the series 'Dexter', and come to our own opinions on the character Dexter.

By contrast there are a large number of stories which are based around pushing a particular viewpoint. One common method of doing this is by having that viewpoint be assumed correct in the story, with all 'good' characters assuming that viewpoint as fact, and the plot backing them up. For example, Ayn Rand's "Atlas Shrugged" does this with Objectivism. Or Chick tracts...

The Wall of the Faithless being treated by Kelemvor / Ao as the only viable option pushes the Forgotten Realms well towards this type of story.
Where the underlying message is that people who don't obey the powerful entities (lower case 'gods') in charge of the Forgotten Realms *should* be sent to a fate arguably worse than Hell.
And this is apparently morally right, since Kelemvor tried to fix it with his 'Wall of Mirrors' and it couldn't work. As told to us by 'Ao', the author insert... sorry, Overgod of the Realms. [It might have been all of the other gods instead of Ao... but that's basically the same situation]

--

2: The fiction is fundamentally illogical.

The wall was created by an evil death god, Myrkul, fairly recently.
It is not a fundamental part of the Forgotten Realms, since the previous death god Jergal didn't have it.
However my understanding is that the overgod of the Forgotten Realms effectively forced Kelemvor to recreate the wall, since it was required for existence. That's a contradiction.

Similarly, relatively few people seem to actually *care* about the wall.
A wall literally sending people to Oblivion, where people are choosing to go to Hell as a better option.

No backlash from good gods, no attempts to escape the forgotten realms via mass plane shifts, and the only serious attempts to take it down are in non-canon sources (Balder's Gate).
This should be the major issue for most Chaotic Good organizations in the Realms - a decree from all high that forces innocents into Oblivion.

I can imagine settings where an equivalent afterlife would work - Eberron has Dolurrh, and entire organizations set up to try to avoid or adapt to it (The Silver Flame, The Undying Court, The Blood of Vol).
Ravenloft has a very similar afterlife with people slowly melting into the Mists. Warhammer 40k has most souls being devoured by demons.

However the Forgotten Realms is meant to be more heroic, less cosmic horror.

Vahnavoi

2020-10-29, 06:07 AM

But we are not criticizing the fiction nor the authors of it and instead we are saying we would not want to support as moral the wall or the gods of that setting because they represent bad people and a bad thing.

You might not be criticizing the fiction or its authors; two out of three of Anymage's specific points refer to the authors and writers of the setting and raise questions of their motives. Others in this thread have also directly critiqued the authors, the overall point being that criticism of these concept runs the whole gamut from moral to literary. There is no plural "you", no "us", no "we", no unified front to the criticism.

Saying "Dexter is an awful person" is not a critic of the author of the Dexter series nor saying that the series is bad: you can like that series about a murderer but still think the murderer is a bad person.

You think I disagree? :smalltongue:

So it is not the same thing as your grandma parallel: most of the authors probably did not think the wall was truly a good thing and that it should exist in real life.

It's pretty clear that you didn't get the joke and explaining it would kill it, so I won't bother.

noob

2020-10-29, 06:16 AM

Actually many of us *are* criticizing the fiction and the authors specifically.
This is for two reasons;

1: Appearing to 'push' a political belief by writing stories assuming it as fact.
2: Lack of internal logic in the fiction.

1. As you say, Dexter is an awful person. However the series 'Dexter' doesn't ever try to convince us that Dexter is a paragon of righteousness.
This means that we can enjoy the series 'Dexter', and come to our own opinions on the character Dexter.

By contrast there are a large number of stories which are based around pushing a particular viewpoint. One common method of doing this is by having that viewpoint be assumed correct in the story, with all 'good' characters assuming that viewpoint as fact, and the plot backing them up. For example, Ayn Rand's "Atlas Shrugged" does this with Objectivism. Or Chick tracts...

The Wall of the Faithless being treated by Kelemvor / Ao as the only viable option pushes the Forgotten Realms well towards this type of story.
Where the underlying message is that people who don't obey the powerful entities (lower case 'gods') in charge of the Forgotten Realms *should* be sent to a fate arguably worse than Hell.
And this is apparently morally right, since Kelemvor tried to fix it with his 'Wall of Mirrors' and it couldn't work. As told to us by 'Ao', the author insert... sorry, Overgod of the Realms. [It might have been all of the other gods instead of Ao... but that's basically the same situation]

--

2: The fiction is fundamentally illogical.

The wall was created by an evil death god, Myrkul, fairly recently.
It is not a fundamental part of the Forgotten Realms, since the previous death god Jergal didn't have it.
However my understanding is that the overgod of the Forgotten Realms effectively forced Kelemvor to recreate the wall, since it was required for existence. That's a contradiction.

Similarly, relatively few people seem to actually *care* about the wall.
A wall literally sending people to Oblivion, where people are choosing to go to Hell as a better option.

No backlash from good gods, no attempts to escape the forgotten realms via mass plane shifts, and the only serious attempts to take it down are in non-canon sources (Balder's Gate).
This should be the major issue for most Chaotic Good organizations in the Realms - a decree from all high that forces innocents into Oblivion.

I can imagine settings where an equivalent afterlife would work - Eberron has Dolurrh, and entire organizations set up to try to avoid or adapt to it (The Silver Flame, The Undying Court, The Blood of Vol).
Ravenloft has a very similar afterlife with people slowly melting into the Mists. Warhammer 40k has most souls being devoured by demons.

However the Forgotten Realms is meant to be more heroic, less cosmic horror.
I agree :I should not have used we.
I should have told I.
I just faced so many fictions that shoehorned awfully bad stuff as being good stuff that I got used to not let it influence me too much. (that is until I have to add a character to it because I like characters that does not have excessively alien systems of virtue)

Warder

2020-10-29, 06:53 AM

I don't get why people see the Wall as an example of "cosmic horror", at all. If anything I think it just showcases the hypocrisy and fallability of the gods, which has been a pretty common theme throughout Forgotten Realms history. As I mentioned earlier, they're not manifestations of their alignments, in the Forgotten Realms they're people, with virtues and vices alike. The good gods may have more virtues than vices, but they're far from perfect. There are examples all throughout Forgotten Realms fiction, but again I point to the Time of Troubles as the perfect example during which only a handful of gods maintained some kind of divine dignity while the rest devolved into squabbles, murder, crusades, the works.

Forgotten Realms is heroic fantasy for sure, and I really don't think a minor element such as the Wall does anything to undermine that. If it has any effect, which for the most part it doesn't, it just provides an extra incentive for mortal heroes to rebel against one of the greatest injustices in Realmspace, as per Mask of the Betrayer (which everyone should play). I came into this thread with no strong feelings about the wall, but the more we've talked about it, the more I enjoy that it's there. It's a beacon of imperfection in the system, which I greatly prefer to the idea of a perfect afterlife.

Vahnavoi

2020-10-29, 07:43 AM

I don't get why people see the Wall as an example of "cosmic horror", at all. If anything I think it just showcases the hypocrisy and fallability of the gods, which has been a pretty common theme throughout Forgotten Realms history.

What part of "the guys in charge of our cosmology are fallible hypocrites" isn't horrifying? :smalltongue::smallwink:

Let's compare and contrast with H. P. Lovecraft. A lot of his cosmic horror can be summarized in three sentences: "god-like beings exist but they don't care about you", "you are insignificant and doomed to be forgotten in grand scheme of things" and "sealife and race mixing are icky".

It should be obvious how the first two apply to the Wall and various other screw-ups of Faerun's gods. The third one has no relevance, unless you want to talk about Illithids.

Warder

2020-10-29, 08:04 AM

What part of "the guys in charge of our cosmology are fallible hypocrites" isn't horrifying? :smalltongue::smallwink:

Let's compare and contrast with H. P. Lovecraft. A lot of his cosmic horror can be summarized in three sentences: "god-like beings exist but they don't care about you", "you are insignificant and doomed to be forgotten in grand scheme of things" and "sealife and race mixing are icky".

It should be obvious how the first two apply to the Wall and various other screw-ups of Faerun's gods. The third one has no relevance, unless you want to talk about Illithids.

Yeah, absolutely! But for nearly everyone in the Forgotten Realms none of that ever comes into play. Their relationship with the gods have nothing to do with the Wall, they don't know about it and aren't affected by it in any way. Zooming out a little to the actual game table, the Wall doesn't touch on the average FR campaign in any way either. In that respect, it's a very minor plotpoint, and certainly nothing that elevates heroic fantasy to cosmic horror levels.

Vahnavoi

2020-10-29, 08:24 AM

Yes, the setting's big enough that you never need to run into or dwell on any individual horror. I could make the same argument you're making of the Wall, about something more popular or central, like the Underdark. Nothing compels you to run a game about fleeing from tentacled brain-eating monsters and crazy spider people in dark bowels of the earth, but all the elements to do that are still present.

Anymage

2020-10-29, 08:29 AM

Yeah, absolutely! But for nearly everyone in the Forgotten Realms none of that ever comes into play. Their relationship with the gods have nothing to do with the Wall, they don't know about it and aren't affected by it in any way. Zooming out a little to the actual game table, the Wall doesn't touch on the average FR campaign in any way either. In that respect, it's a very minor plotpoint, and certainly nothing that elevates heroic fantasy to cosmic horror levels.

It's a minor, insignificant piece of the cosmology that practically none of the mortal denizens know about. Up until the moment that the current god of death says "y'know, this is kinda sucky" and removes it. At which point enough people become atheists (and not just disinterested, but actively antitheist since that's what it took to get thrown into the wall) to disrupt the cosmos, and other divine forces (which I'm not clear on whether that includes the overgod or not) pressure him until he puts it back.

Keltest

2020-10-29, 08:42 AM

It's a minor, insignificant piece of the cosmology that practically none of the mortal denizens know about. Up until the moment that the current god of death says "y'know, this is kinda sucky" and removes it. At which point enough people become atheists (and not just disinterested, but actively antitheist since that's what it took to get thrown into the wall) to disrupt the cosmos, and other divine forces (which I'm not clear on whether that includes the overgod or not) pressure him until he puts it back.

Why do people keep repeating this? It wasnt the absence of the wall, it was the fact that Kelemvor was playing favorites with the souls of dead people in his care. Not all of them were Faithless or False.

Notably, when he went back and re-evaluated everybody, most of the souls didnt get tossed into the wall, they just got moved to a less cushy (or horrible) afterlife. His whole realm became less extreme, but also he clearly had many souls that didnt qualify for the wall that were still going to him.

Spriteless

2020-10-29, 12:46 PM

Demons, for their part, can steal souls out of the wall, drag them back to the Abyss, and forcibly convert the souls into demons. Regardless of their alignment in life.

Think about how ****ed that is.

Wait a second. Those demons were stealing from the wall? I thought the wall stopped them from stealing from the Gods' private afterlives, but they found a way past it! I mean, it's ****ty protect people you're friends with using people without powerful friends, but at least it was something I understood. But without that it's weirdly unjustified and callous. I had to make up a headcanon just to encode the memory.

And the Cataclysm was stupid, but the Krynn Gods make decisions by committee, and Good is Stupid. Or at least, Paladine will give people second chances to a fault, and the other gods will outvote him to nuke that epic caster known as The KingPriest from orbit once time is short enough that it's effectively a choice between 2 genocides, one of The KingPriest's choice, or one where the casualties are spread among all creeds. So it is stupid, evil, unnecessary, and completely in character.

In the third? fourth? trilogy, Takhisis and Paladine became mortals, so Gilian the Neutral might get rid of committees.

LibraryOgre

2020-10-29, 04:36 PM

Wait a second. Those demons were stealing from the wall? I thought the wall stopped them from stealing from the Gods' private afterlives, but they found a way past it! I mean, it's ****ty protect people you're friends with using people without powerful friends, but at least it was something I understood. But without that it's weirdly unjustified and callous. I had to make up a headcanon just to encode the memory.

Fiends can steal them from the Fugue Plane, before they're claimed by their deity.

Millstone85

2020-10-29, 06:01 PM

Fiends can steal them from the Fugue Plane, before they're claimed by their deity.Kelemvor should ask Mystra how she and her predecessors / previous incarnations moved Dweomerheart from Limbo to Mechanus and then to Elysium.

It would sure be nice if unjudged souls didn't have to wait in Hades or anywhere near the Lower Planes.

hamishspence

2020-10-30, 01:51 AM

Demons, for their part, can steal souls out of the wall, drag them back to the Abyss, and forcibly convert the souls into demons. Regardless of their alignment in life.

Wait a second. Those demons were stealing from the wall? I thought the wall stopped them from stealing from the Gods' private afterlives, but they found a way past it!

Fiends can steal them from the Fugue Plane, before they're claimed by their deity.

Devils bargain with souls on the Fugue Plane. Demons steal them from the Wall, and from the City of Judgment.

Page 258-259 of FRCS.

Within the Fugue Plane lurk small enclaves of baatezu. By agreement with Kelemvor, they cannot harm or trick the waiting souls. However, the devils are allowed to explain to the souls that they are dead and awaiting the arrival of a divine messenger to take them back to their deity's realm. At this point, the devils attempt to bargain with souls.
...
In exchange for consigning themselves to the Nine Hells, souls may be offered early promotions from lemure to another form of devil, material riches for friends or family back on Faerun, or the execution of devilish attacks on their still-living enemies. Exceptionally powerful souls may bargain for automatic transformation into something other than a lemure.

While the lawful baatezu have a contract with Kelemvor that allows them to acquire souls, the chaotic tanar'ri employ another method. They steal them. From time to time, a demon ruler creates a portal between the Abyss and the Fugue Plane. Dozens of servitor demons spill through the opening to claw a hole in the the wall of the Faithless, tearing some of the doomed free to be brought back to the Abyss. The demons then raid the city, gathering as many souls as they can before retreating.

That said, Deities & Demigods does suggest that those with no patron deity, yet who do not qualify as Faithless either, can end up captured by a demon or devil raiding party. Presumably, "raiding party" for devils, means "bargaining party" and for demons, the raiding party has come through a portal on the way to rip a hole in the Wall, stumbled across a wandering patron-less soul, and swept them up.

Why do people keep repeating this? It wasnt the absence of the wall, it was the fact that Kelemvor was playing favorites with the souls of dead people in his care. Not all of them were Faithless or False.

Notably, when he went back and re-evaluated everybody, most of the souls didnt get tossed into the wall, they just got moved to a less cushy (or horrible) afterlife. His whole realm became less extreme, but also he clearly had many souls that didnt qualify for the wall that were still going to him.

Yes, all of them were either Faithless, False, or his own worshippers. Plenty of souls that "didn't qualify for the Wall" were False.

Anyone who Kelemvor has judged has to fall into any of these three categories. He's not allowed to judge anyone else - that's for their own patrons to do.

The "less cushy and less horrible" afterlives in the City of Judgment, were for the False. Kelemvor was, early on, rewarding the nice False and punishing the nasty False (which was why it was a problem - it encouraged nice people to be False), but then he toned it down.

Clistenes

2020-10-31, 01:28 PM

My problem with the Wall of the Faithless is that it makes difficult not to see the gods as selfish, self-serving evil parasites: Ao wasn't forcing Kelemvor to put people in the Wall, the Greater Deities are the ones pushing him to keep the whole False and Faithless system...

Evil deities made a minority among the Greater Deities, Good and Neutral ones could have supported Kelemvor, but most of the Greater Deities were okay with the status quo because it benefited them...

And, do you know what pisses me most? Most Faerunian deities aren't good fits for average people... there isn't a default "God for otherwise normal folk who just try to be decent, normal people", like say Pelor or Paladine, in Faerun... The closest I can think is Chauntea, but even she demands that peasants be utterly dedicated to their job, she is no goddess for people who just work to survive (who sometimes work the land but may become logger, or a miner, or a digger or a builder, whatever they need to do to earn money...) They keep the False and Faithless system because they aren't attractive enough on their own for average folk who just carry on with their lives...

As for the Cataclysm, it highlights how messed up and warped the whole Krynnian Good/Neutrality/Evil system is... Good and Evil aren't good and evil, they are cosmic factions... you can be a narcissistic genocidal racist tyrant and still align with Good because you worship the right gods, and you can be a mostly likeable and honorable dude and still serve an Evil deity.

I suspect Dragonlance designers thought that the Good faction was supposed to be something like the Church, with Crusades, Witch Hunts and Wars of Religion all included... which is stupid, because people who go around slaughtering and burning innocent, harmless civilians are obviously evil, no matter whose deity they worship, and in a world like Krynn, where Good gods actually communicate with their worshipers, they should be able to draw lines "Don't do that! That's evil...!"

dancrilis

2020-10-31, 02:30 PM

Vahnavoi

2020-10-31, 02:34 PM

Dragonlance makes more sense if you keep in mind that it came at the tail end of 1st Edition AD&D. As originally envisioned in AD&D:

1) True Neutral is as much about preserving the natural world and avoiding extremism, as its about balancing Good and Evil acts.
2) The natural world is not of any extreme alignment.
3) Humans are not generally good; humans have no general alignment tendency at all.

The corollary to that is that taking any extreme Alignment (Lawful Good, Lawful Evil, Chaotic Good, Chaotic Evil) to its logical conclusion perforce means eliminating the natural world and majority of humans.

There was also an idea at a point that the best Alignment from real life perspective is not Lawful Good - it's True Neutral, because that's closest to world as it is without literal angels and demons. This is also the root of the idea that real humans are mostly Neutral.

Clistenes

2020-10-31, 03:11 PM

Personally always liked the Wall of the Faithless.

A lot of it will be DM interpretation etc but in principle the Gods want(more recently need) worship and the wall is a fair way of encouraging people to worship gods without it being biased against any side.

The people who seems to have a problem with it seems to think that good people should get a good afterlife and bad people should get a bad one - which is all fine, but does make the gods and their edicts and dogmas a bit irrelevant, which for a god heavy setting like Forgotten Realms would seem a shame.

The Kalamar setting has something similar, the Plane of Annihilation. Souls of atheists or of people no deity will claim are dropped into the Plane of Annihilation, which destroys them, but it is less controversial than the Wall of the Faithless because:

1.-It was created by their Overgod, a huge jerkhole troll who allows Godwars because he is bored and he likes to see the suckers fight...

2.-The gods themselves hate the Plane of Annihilation and would love to get rid of it, because it grows every time it devours a soul, shrinking the home planes of the deities themselves.

3.-Since the gods themselves hate the Plane of Annihilation, they try to toss as few souls as they can... they will save as many as they are able... Of course, they can still treat like crap a soul that worshiped a deity but behave in counter to that deity's tenets.

4.-I find it easier for normal, average people to find a deity that fits... I mean, they have a deity that is all about taking care of your family (the Holy Mother), another that is all about living in peace (the Peacemaker), others that are about stuff like Happiness, Hope, Harmony, Love ...etc. They don't demand that you focus on developing a skill and on an occupation or on following a strict code of behavior. Every person who is a decent parent qualifies to become a follower of the Holy Mother, everybody who tries to stay out of trouble and live decently qualifies to become a follower of the Peacemaker, everybody who tries to be free and live happily qualifies to be a follower of the Guardian..etc.

NorthernPhoenix

2020-10-31, 04:07 PM

And, do you know what pisses me most? Most Faerunian deities aren't good fits for average people... there isn't a default "God for otherwise normal folk who just try to be decent, normal people", like say Pelor or Paladine, in Faerun... The closest I can think is Chauntea, but even she demands that peasants be utterly dedicated to their job, she is no goddess for people who just work to survive (who sometimes work the land but may become logger, or a miner, or a digger or a builder, whatever they need to do to earn money...) They keep the False and Faithless system because they aren't attractive enough on their own for average folk who just carry on with their lives...

I don't think that's true, since the FR has so many gods there's bound to be one dedicated to whatever a given person is "about". And even if there's not, you don't need cleric style devotion to one or a few gods to avoid the wall. In fact, most people in the setting are not monotheists, but pray to all the gods which are relevant to their life. You just need to acknowledge the gods in general and not deny them. Anyone who just prays for rain when they want rain and sun when they want sun is doing enough. "Normal folk" who are at sea a bunch (fishermen or traders) usually pray to Umberlee more than once, for example, even if they're miles and miles in morality from being a mad cleric who wants to summon tidal waves or whatever.

hamishspence

2020-10-31, 04:23 PM

I don't think that's true, since the FR has so many gods there's bound to be one dedicated to whatever a given person is "about". And even if there's not, you don't need cleric style devotion to one or a few gods to avoid the wall.

You do need a patron to avoid "wandering the Fugue plane until demons or devils capture you" though (that is, if devils are allowed to simply kidnap the outright patron-less, and bargaining is only required for those with patrons). Still, it may be that a character can have a patron and be unaware of it.

Alternative reality Drizzt, who decided all gods blew after his experience with Lloth, but accomplished everything else he did in life and died CG, would have ended up in the Wall. Then Lloth could have sent some servants over to drag his soul before her after all. While Kelemvor shrugs and the "Good" gods look on.

Drizzt actually asserts that he will "follow no god" - but Montolio, his ranger mentor, convinces him that he's followed Mielikki all his life, even if he's never heard her name before until now.

“Who is your god, drow?” Montolio asked. In all the weeks he and Drizzt had been together, they had not really discussed religion.
“I have no god,” Drizzt answered boldly, “and neither do I want one.”
It was Montolio’s turn to pause.
Drizzt rose and walked off a few paces.
“My people follow Lloth,” he began. “She, if not the cause, is surely the continuation of their wickedness, as this Gruumsh is to the orcs, and as other gods are to other peoples. To follow a god is folly. I shall follow my heart instead.”
Montolio’s quiet chuckle stole the power from Drizzt’s proclamation. “You have a god, Drizzt Do’Urden,” he said.
“My god is my heart,” Drizzt declared, turning back to him.
“As is mine.”
“You named your god as Mielikki,” Drizzt protested.
“And you have not found a name for your god yet,” Montolio shot back. “That does not mean that you have no god. Your
god is your heart, and what does your heart tell you?”
“I do not know,” Drizzt admitted after considering the troubling question.
“Think then!” Montolio cried. “What did your instincts tell you of the gnoll band, or of the farmers in Maldobar? Lloth is not your deity—that much is certain. What god or goddess then fits that which is in Drizzt Do’Urden’s heart?”
Montolio could almost hear Drizzt’s continuing shrugs.
“You do not know?” the old ranger asked. “But I do.”
“You presume much,” Drizzt replied, still not convinced.
“I observe much,” Montolio said with a laugh. “Are you of like heart with Guenhwyvar?”
“I have never doubted that fact,” Drizzt answered honestly.
“Guenhwyvar follows Mielikki.”
“How can you know?” Drizzt argued, growing a bit perturbed. He didn’t mind Montolio’s presumptions about him, but Drizzt considered such labeling an attack on the panther. Somehow to Drizzt, Guenhwyvar seemed to be above gods and all the implications of following one.
“How can I know?” Montolio echoed incredulously. “The cat told me, of course! Guenhwyvar is the entity of the panther, a creature of Mielikki’s domain.”
“Guenhwyvar does not need your labels,” Drizzt retorted angrily, moving briskly to sit again beside the ranger.
“Of course not,” Montolio agreed. “But that does not change the fact of it. You do not understand, Drizzt Do’Urden. You grew up among the perversion of a deity.”
“And yours is the true one?” Drizzt asked sarcastically.
“They are all true, and they are all one, I fear,” Montolio replied. Drizzt had to agree with Montolio’s earlier observation: He did not understand.
“You view the gods as entities without,” Montolio tried to explain. “You see them as physical beings trying to control our actions for their own ends, and thus you, in your stubborn independence, reject them. The gods are within, I say, whether one has named his own or not. You have followed Mielikki all of your life, Drizzt. You merely never had a name to put on your heart.”
Suddenly Drizzt was more intrigued than skeptical.
“What did you feel when you first walked out of the Underdark?” Montolio asked. “What did your heart tell you when first you looked upon the sun or the stars, or the forest green?”
Drizzt thought back to that distant day, when he and his drow patrol had come out of the Underdark to raid an elven gathering. Those were painful memories, but within them loomed one sense of comfort, one memory of wondrous elation at the feel of the wind and the scents of newly bloomed flowers.
“And how did you talk to Bluster?” Montolio continued. “No easy feat, sharing a cave with that bear! Admit it or not, you’ve the heart of a ranger. And the heart of a ranger is a heart of Mielikki.”
So formal a conclusion brought back a measure of Drizzt’s doubts. “And what does your goddess require?” he asked, the angry edge returned to his voice. He began to stand again, but Montolio slapped a hand over his legs and held him down.
“Require?” The ranger laughed. “I am no missionary spreading a fine word and imposing rules of behavior! Did I not just tell you that gods are within? You know Mielikki’s rules as well as I. You have been following them all of your life. I offer you a name for it, that is all, and an ideal of behavior personified, an example that you might follow in times that you stray from what you know is true.”

noob

2020-10-31, 04:24 PM

I don't think that's true, since the FR has so many gods there's bound to be one dedicated to whatever a given person is "about". And even if there's not, you don't need cleric style devotion to one or a few gods to avoid the wall. In fact, most people in the setting are not monotheists, but pray to all the gods which are relevant to their life. You just need to acknowledge the gods in general and not deny them. Anyone who just prays for rain when they want rain and sun when they want sun is doing enough. "Normal folk" who are at sea a bunch (fishermen or traders) usually pray to Umberlee more than once, for example, even if they're miles and miles in morality from being a mad cleric who wants to summon tidal waves or whatever.
You can pray for someone to stop the rain but it does not make of them your patron god if you are unable to feel respect toward them because of their betrayal or mass murder during the times of troubles.
You have to actively pick a specific god rather than worshipping equally a few gods: the rules say "you go to the afterlife of your patron god" not "to the afterlife of one of the gods you worship".
So your interpretation does not fits the rules.
Also some rules specifies you can worship only gods that are allowed for your class or your race which makes it much harder to pick the right deity for many individuals.

NorthernPhoenix

2020-10-31, 04:26 PM

hamishspence

2020-10-31, 04:37 PM

You have to actively pick a specific god rather than worshipping equally a few gods: the rules say "you go to the afterlife of your patron god" not "to the afterlife of one of the gods you worship".From Ed Greenwood Presents The Forgotten Realms:

"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 and 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."

"For almost all mortals, religion is a matter of embracing one deity above - even if only slightly above - all others."

"Only clergy, paladins, and fanatics specialise in the worship of certain deities. Everyone else in the Realms is constantly poised between the gods, making offerings, participating in rituals, and seeking guidance as they see fit from among all the gods, as the situations and necessities of their personal lives suggest is most appropriate."

So it's possible that even the character themselves, doesn't know who their patron is, until they die.

So it may be quite hard to be "patronless".

LibraryOgre

2020-10-31, 04:39 PM

You can pray for someone to stop the rain but it does not make of them your patron god if you are unable to feel respect toward them because of their betrayal or mass murder during the times of troubles.
You have to actively pick a specific god rather than worshipping equally a few gods: the rules say "you go to the afterlife of your patron god" not "to the afterlife of one of the gods you worship".
So your interpretation does not fits the rules.
Also some rules specifies you can worship only gods that are allowed for your class or your race which makes it much harder to pick the right deity for many individuals.

Yeah, this is not actually the case.

All of these religions involve the worship of multiple powers within a pantheon, although not necessarily multiple pantheons. This is the normal state of affairs in the Realms.

Thus, in abstract it is really ridiculous to think of one deity of the Realms becoming angry at a worshiper just for worshiping another deity. What matters to a particular Realms power is not that a follower worships someone else—most everyone in the Realms worships several someone elses—but rather which other powers are venerated and which are appeased, and how serious a person's offerings and worship are to other deities. Some pantheons even do not care if their worshipers also venerate deities from other pantheons.
It is also rather silly to think of a particular temple having a congregation that is exclusive only to it, except in special cases. The folk of the Realms worship in many places, and they worship the powers both by venerating them and by placating them. If a person has a high regard for knowledge or is a singer or bard in most of Faerun, she or he worships Oghma. But if that same person is planning an ocean voyage in winter, she or he also worships Auril and Umberlee by placating them with offerings to persuade them to allow the trip to proceed safely.
Most folk have a handful of powers that they regularly venerate, only appeasing an unpleasant
power when they are entering or engaged in a situation where that deity holds sway. Most people in the Realms also eventually settle on a sort of patron deity who they are most comfortable venerating and who they hold in the greatest reverence.

Absolutely nothing in there conforms with your absolutist view of Realms religion; if you don't believe that's what it says, as I noted, that much is available in the free preview on Drivethru (https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/17569/Faiths--Avatars-2e?affiliate_id=315505), which goes on to specify that the Faithless and the False are only those who denied the gods or betrayed them.

noob

2020-10-31, 04:39 PM

From Ed Greenwood Presents The Forgotten Realms:

"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 and 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."

"For almost all mortals, religion is a matter of embracing one deity above - even if only slightly above - all others."

"Only clergy, paladins, and fanatics specialise in the worship of certain deities. Everyone else in the Realms is constantly poised between the gods, making offerings, participating in rituals, and seeking guidance as they see fit from among all the gods, as the situations and necessities of their personal lives suggest is most appropriate."

So it's possible that even the character themselves, doesn't know who their patron is, until they die.

So it may be quite hard to be "patronless".

So if your moral outlook is "the wall should burn" in which afterlife do you end?

hamishspence

2020-10-31, 04:42 PM

If you don't have a specific patron god, you go to a plane appropriate to your alignment. Only if you're specifically an atheist who denies the gods do you go to the wall.

You do need a patron (aware or not) to skip the line VIP style, but that doesn't mean everyone get's ambushed while waiting in line.

To be fair, Deities and Demigods does say that "those with no patron deity" are stuck on the Fugue Plane (but not in the Wall).

Deities & Demigods:

In the Forgotten Realms campaign setting, for example, the souls of those with no patron deity are consigned to wander the Fugue Plain until they are either taken in by a merciful deity or captured by demon or devil raiders and drafted into service in their eternal war.

noob

2020-10-31, 04:46 PM

To be fair, Deities and Demigods does say that "those with no patron deity" are stuck on the Fugue Plane (but not in the Wall).

Which is why arguing on that setting is quite hard: there is like hundreds of different people who wrote book and rules for that setting and most rules and books contradicts other rules and other books.
Massive setting inconsistency is very annoying.
I did remember that not having a patron deity was punished because I did read it somewhere (probably the same source as yours)
But there is other sources saying that not having a patron deity is not punished.(the ones the above posters used)

Clistenes

2020-10-31, 04:56 PM

If you worship several gods, you get taken by the one your past lifestyle and behavior fits better... but if you worship one or more gods and your behavior and life choices don't please them, you are considered a False and you are to serve Kelemvor for all eternity... you may be told to do chores or you may get tortured, depending on how far your lifestyle was from the demands of the deity you worshiped...

Canon example: A thief worships Torm; he tries to be a good person, or at least not an evil one, but he keeps stealing, he isn't brave, and lives mostly for himself. After death Torms refuses him because of his life choices, and Mask, the God of Thieves, refuses him too, because he never prayed to him in life... so he gets dumped among the False.

The problem is, most faerunian gods demand that you be focused on one activity or skill, or follow a strict moral code, or worship them a lot.

Torm, Helm and Tyr expect you to be all about duty, loyalty or justice. Gond, Milil, Oghma and Mystra expect you to be very focused on craftmanship, art, knowledge or magic. Sune expect you to focus on beauty, Sharess on pleasure, Lliira on having fun...

If you are town guard who fears getting into fights, a weaver who works for the money rather than because you love weaving, a librarian who eventually gets tired of seeking knowledge, a party animal who eventually gets tired of partying... then you aren't good enough.

As I said, I think the faerunian afterlife would be more palatable if some deities were less focused and more "deity who accepts all decent folk".

noob

2020-10-31, 04:59 PM

hamishspence

2020-10-31, 04:59 PM

Deities & Demigods makes a distinction between "has no patron deity" and "Is Faithless". It takes the approach that the Faithless "actively opposed the worship of the gods".

FRCS is a bit less clear. It says the Faithless either "firmly denied any faith" or "paid lip service to the gods without truly believing".

It also has:

"Everyone in Faerun knows that those who die without a patron deity to send a servant to collect them from the Fugue Plane at their death spend eternity writhing in the Wall of the Faithless or disappear into the hells of the devils or the infernos of the demons."

So, even if one is patronless and is not ending up the Wall, one is, apparently, normally going to end up in the Nine Hells or the Abyss instead.

Presumably, one won't wander the Fugue Plane very long.

Clistenes

2020-10-31, 05:09 PM

Yes like a single deity that tells people "if you are good you will be rewarded" and that was kelemvor for a short period of time then the other gods which had harder to fill standards just got angry at kelemvor because of the competition: you just had to not worship any god and be a nice person.
I think that if any god becomes too permissive the other gods gets angry at that god and that even if that permissive god was not kelemvor the other gods would just ask ao to punish them.

Kelemvor's problem was that he treated well people who didn't worship any deity. What I say, there should be a deity willing to take everybody who worship them so long as they aren't *******s.

In the Greyhawk setting that deity would be Pelor, the default Good deity; he is the God of the Sun, Light, Strength, and Healing, but he doesn't demand that you be a warrior or a healer... if you are a decent person, you are good to go. He is a god John Smith, who makes a living digging ditches, cleaning chimneys and repairing roofs, likes to have a beer after work before heading home and tries to stay out of trouble could worship...

hamishspence

2020-10-31, 05:15 PM

Canon example: A thief worships Torm; he tries to be a good person, or at least not an evil one, but he keeps stealing, he isn't brave, and lives mostly for himself. After death Torms refuses him because of his life choices, and Mask, the God of Thieves, refuses him too, because he never prayed to him in life... so he gets dumped among the False.

I'm not sure if Gwydion the Quick, from Prince of Lies was ever a thief in the strictest sense. More of an adventurer.

Mask didn't really get a chance to choose him - he'd chosen Torm as his patron, yet failed to meet Torm's requirements - so he was considered False - with Mask not appearing, to do any refusing. It was Cyric though that was doing the judging, so of course he'd be as unfair as possible.

The guy who Mask declared as "one of his False" was a different person - Avner of Hartsvale, in Prince of Lies. He'd actually gotten into Torm's afterlife - sent there by Kelemvor - but when Mask later challenged the decision, it turned out that he'd never actually prayed to Torm directly, and had prayed to "Mask in disguise" (the giant goddess Diancastra) - so he got declared False and moved to the City of Judgment.

LibraryOgre

2020-10-31, 05:40 PM

So if your moral outlook is "the wall should burn" in which afterlife do you end?

Kossuth would be good, depending on how literally you meant "burn". Cyric, too, since he likes tearing things down. Though, most likely, since they seem to be mixing that with "The gods are malign beings for not stopping this", they'd likely end up among the Faithless... actively repudiated the Gods and worship.

Of course, different angles could be taken. I could see a devout follower of Tyr, the God of Justice, holding that the Wall was unjust. Ilmater might take the position that it was undeserved suffering. Velsharoon, of course, might think there was a better use they could be put to.

Millstone85

2020-10-31, 05:59 PM

Most Faerunian deities aren't good fits for average people... there isn't a default "God for otherwise normal folk who just try to be decent, normal people", like say Pelor or Paladine, in Faerun... The closest I can think is Chauntea, but even she demands that peasants be utterly dedicated to their job
The problem is, most faerunian gods demand that you be focused on one activity or skill, or follow a strict moral code, or worship them a lot.

Torm, Helm and Tyr expect you to be all about duty, loyalty or justice. Gond, Milil, Oghma and Mystra expect you to be very focused on craftmanship, art, knowledge or magic. Sune expect you to focus on beauty, Sharess on pleasure, Lliira on having fun...
What I say, there should be a deity willing to take everybody who worship them so long as they aren't *******s.

In the Greyhawk setting that deity would be Pelor, the default Good deity; he is the God of the Sun, Light, Strength, and Healing, but he doesn't demand that you be a warrior or a healer... if you are a decent person, you are good to go.I was under the impression, perhaps very very mistaken, that Lathander or Selûne would fit that bill. What am I missing about them?

Clistenes

2020-10-31, 06:21 PM

I was under the impression, perhaps very very mistaken, that Lathander or SelÃ»ne would fit that bill. What am I missing about them?

Lathander is the God of Beginnings. You have to start new things, new projects, to have high hopes for the future, to create art, to train at a sport trying to become good at it...etc. In short, you mostly have to focus in the future.

Simply being young would be enough too, so long as you worship him... He is popular among young and vital people, who find it easy to meet his requirements, but as they grow old and their focus moves to the present and even the past, they tend to migrate to other faiths.

SelÃ»ne, the Goddess of the Moon and Stars, is worshiped mostly by travelers, sailors and stargazers, plus non-evil lycanthropes. I am not sure she is widely worshiped by all kind of folks everywhere (she is just an Intermediate Goddess, despite being the goddess of the moon and having a quite easy to follow dogma...). That said, her dogma of equality, tolerance, acceptance and compassion seems like could potentially make her into the faerunian version of Pelor.

I'm not sure if Gwydion the Quick, from Prince of Lies was ever a thief in the strictest sense. More of an adventurer.

Mask didn't really get a chance to choose him - he'd chosen Torm as his patron, yet failed to meet Torm's requirements - so he was considered False - with Mask not appearing, to do any refusing. It was Cyric though that was doing the judging, so of course he'd be as unfair as possible.

The guy who Mask declared as "one of his False" was a different person - Avner of Hartsvale, in Prince of Lies. He'd actually gotten into Torm's afterlife - sent there by Kelemvor - but when Mask later challenged the decision, it turned out that he'd never actually prayed to Torm directly, and had prayed to "Mask in disguise" (the giant goddess Diancastra) - so he got declared False and moved to the City of Judgment.

I probably have mixed them up...

Telok

2020-10-31, 11:56 PM

You know what would solve most of this? God of booze. Have a twice yearly "free beer" day. Getting at least tipsy counts as worship.

LibraryOgre

2020-11-01, 01:32 AM

You know what would solve most of this? God of booze. Have a twice yearly "free beer" day. Getting at least tipsy counts as worship.

Lliira would be a common one, in that case.

Are you a farmer? Chauntea.
Are you a hunter? Mielikki.
Craftsman? Gond.
Merchant? Waukeen.
Sailor? Valkur (though pay your respects to Umberlee)
Town guard? Helm.
Scribe? Deneir.

Insofar as your profession defines what you spend a lot of time doing, these are going to cover a lot of "normal people".

Clistenes

2020-11-01, 06:26 AM

Lliira would be a common one, in that case.

Are you a farmer? Chauntea.
Are you a hunter? Mielikki.
Craftsman? Gond.
Merchant? Waukeen.
Sailor? Valkur (though pay your respects to Umberlee)
Town guard? Helm.
Scribe? Deneir.

Insofar as your profession defines what you spend a lot of time doing, these are going to cover a lot of "normal people".

But that's the problem. You have to let your profession define you. If you don't focus enough on the job, you are a False.

For example, Gond's dogma is: "Actions count. Intentions and thought are one thing, but it is the result that is most important. Talk is for others, while those who serve Gond do. Make new things that work. Become skilled at forging or some craft, and practice making things and various means of joining and fastening until you can create devices to suit any situation or space. Question and challenge the unknown with new devices. New inventions should be elegant and useful. Practice experimentation and innovation in the making of tools and the implementation of processes, and encourage these virtues in others through direct aid, sponsorship, and diplomatic support. Keep records of your strivings, ideas, and sample devices so that others may follow your work and improve on what you leave behind and encourage others, such as farmers and hunters, to think of new tools, improved ways of crafting and using their existing gear, and new ways of doing things. Observe, acquire, and store safely the makings of others and spread such knowledge among the Consecrated of Gond. Discuss ideas and spread them so that all may see the divine light that is the Wonderbringer."

That's not Bob the tinker who makes brass pots and pans and sells them in the market, that's an inventor...

Chauntea's dogma is: "Growing and reaping are part of the eternal cycle and the most natural part of life. Destruction for is own sake and leveling without rebuilding are anathema. Let no day pass in which you have not helped a living thing flourish. Nurture, tend, and plant wherever possible. Protect trees and plants, and save their seeds so that what is destroyed can be replaced. See to the fertility of the earth but let the human womb see to its own. Eschew fire. Plant a seed or small plant at least once a tenday."

A dude who works as a harvester during autumns, as a miner during winters and as a logger during springs and summers wouldn't be focused enough on farming for Chauntea...

Deneir's dogma is: "Information that is not recorded and saved for later use is information that is lost. Punish those who deface or destroy a book in proportion to the value of the information lost. Literacy is an important gift from Deneir; spread it wherever you travel, that it might couch the hearts and minds of all Faerun. Fill idle hours with the copying of written work, for in such a manner do you propagate knowledge and aid the pursuit of the Metatext. Information should be free to all and all should be able to read it so that lying tongues cannot distort things out of proportion."

You have to use your free time to copy books and teach others how to read and write...

As I mentioned in a previous post, Chauntea probably is quite easy to follow for a full-time farmer, not so much for others. And the other gods expect your job to define your personality and lifestyle.

Keltest

2020-11-01, 07:15 AM

I think you are overestimating the number of seasonal workers there are in the Realms. If youre a medieval peasant working on a farm, then you have a plot of land that is yours that you take care of all year, and maybe you cut down trees or something in the winter for firewood, but youre still a farmer as your main profession, because farming takes up the majority of your attention and the other things you do are simply things to do between when youre farming, either out of boredom or necessity.

But if youre somehow legitimately just a random unskilled laborer, youre probably going to worship one of the gods of general service of some kind. You might follow Waukeen, bartering your services for coin or food. Maybe you'd worship Amaunator as the god of order, law and time, since all of those things would be important factors in your year. Maybe Lathander, because youre constantly changing professions and starting new jobs.

Also, Bob the "tinker" who only makes pots isnt really a tinker. He's a potmaker, a merchant. he'd follow Waukeen.

Kaerou

2020-11-01, 07:27 AM

I admit that I can't take the wall of the faithless s canon either, it destroys the entire setting. It means there is no good in the setting, only evil. Every single 'good' god is bound and participating in a machination so utterly evil, so horrific they cannot be good anymore.

It *cannot* go both ways. Unless the good (and even neutral) gods are actively fighting against this the setting is inconsistent and broken.

It needs to go. And not just gone, either destroyed in setting by good and neutral gods to redeem them or retconned entirely.

Quertus

2020-11-01, 08:50 AM

LibraryOgre

2020-11-01, 10:53 AM

But that's the problem. You have to let your profession define you. If you don't focus enough on the job, you are a False.

Again, this isn't in line with what is actually written. You're not required to be a perfect follower a of a god, or their dogma... you have some that you agree with more than others, and mostly follow their ways, and mostly offer to because it is relevant in your life. You're not betraying one god by worshiping another in its time... you offer to Umberlee before a sea voyage, because she rules the seas, even if you're otherwise dedicated to Tyr or Silvanus.

In short, I think folks are over-estimating who becomes False or Faithless. You are not required to be a perfect example of your deity's dogma. You're not required to follow them all the time. You just have to mostly agree with them, not deny them, and not betray them.

Again:

All of these religions involve the worship of multiple powers within a pantheon, although not necessarily multiple pantheons. This is the normal state of affairs in the Realms.

Thus, in abstract it is really ridiculous to think of one deity of the Realms becoming angry at a worshiper just for worshiping another deity. What matters to a particular Realms power is not that a follower worships someone else—most everyone in the Realms worships several someone elses—but rather which other powers are venerated and which are appeased, and how serious a person's offerings and worship are to other deities.

Clistenes

2020-11-01, 07:32 PM

Also, Bob the "tinker" who only makes pots isnt really a tinker. He's a potmaker, a merchant. he'd follow Waukeen.

A tinker or tinsmith (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tinsmith) is somebody who deals in tin plate or tinware. Specifically, an itinerant mender of household utensils. (https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/tinker)

Again, this isn't in line with what is actually written. You're not required to be a perfect follower a of a god, or their dogma... you have some that you agree with more than others, and mostly follow their ways, and mostly offer to because it is relevant in your life. You're not betraying one god by worshiping another in its time... you offer to Umberlee before a sea voyage, because she rules the seas, even if you're otherwise dedicated to Tyr or Silvanus.

In short, I think folks are over-estimating who becomes False or Faithless. You are not required to be a perfect example of your deity's dogma. You're not required to follow them all the time. You just have to mostly agree with them, not deny them, and not betray them.

Again:

It's not a matter of worshiping more than one deity, is a matter of being good enough for any of them. It is okay to worship Chauntea and Selune and Lathander and Sune if at least one of them thinks you have followed their dogma well enough... the problem comes if you weren't dedicated enough to any of their dogmas...

awa

2020-11-01, 08:46 PM

Lord Raziere

2020-11-01, 09:03 PM

This seems like there are multiple possible interpretations of the wall. Some that make the wall monstrous and others that don't. Why not choose the interpretation that lets the setting work, rather than the one that breaks it?

That their is some punishment for people who actively reject the gods seems logical, even if it's not nice. Its only when you can accidentally be faithless that it starts to be such a big problem.

So just use that interpretation.

Your making a lot of assumptions here.

First of all, you assume I want the setting to work the same it always has

Second of all, you assume that even 1 person being sentenced to the wall is acceptable

these assumptions are wrong

even it being restricted to the intentionally faithless, its way past "not nice". throwing someone into eternal wall prison for not fawning over glorified magical celebrities is an injustice, an objective wrong. the only way this injustice is acceptable is if its explicitly said to be an evil that the good deities are trying to correct or do something about, and thus something that adventurers can work to get rid of.

Keltest

2020-11-01, 09:49 PM

A tinker or tinsmith (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tinsmith) is somebody who deals in tin plate or tinware. Specifically, an itinerant mender of household utensils. (https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/tinker)

Even so, he isnt a scientist in the way that a follower of Gond would be. He doesnt experiment or anything like that, he just sells his services at market like a dozen other different flavors of merchant.

Mechalich

2020-11-01, 10:21 PM

Second of all, you assume that even 1 person being sentenced to the wall is acceptable

The Wall is, by an immense margin, not even close to the worst thing that can happen to someone in the Faerunian afterlife. Honestly, it's maybe a 4 out of 10 on the 'horrific tortures' scale at best. The idea that the Wall is somehow worse than Hell is abject BS. Being stuck in the Wall just means being stuck in an uncomfortable place for a long time, there's no indication those stuck there experience any other privations (they're souls, hunger, thirst, and even a need to breath are no longer concerns), while people on the Lower Planes or other nasty pockets of the Faerunian cosmology are being put through people-shredders ten thousand times a day and worse (honestly, if you think being stuck in what is essentially an endless mosh pit for all eternity is the worst that can happen to you you're suffering a serious failure of imaginative horror). Plenty of people sentenced to the wall, including essentially all of them who ping as evil, are actually getting off really, really easy compared to what would happen to them if they went to the fate their nominally responsible deity has waiting for them.

The Wall of the Faithless is a weird, and yes arguably ethically misaligned piece of the Faerunian cosmology, but it really sounds like a lot of people are transposing much broader objections to the idea of a post-death cosmic judgment by imperfect and dubiously moral entities that undergird the entire system onto this one really marginal concept. That's fine so far as it goes, the mythological scholarship that was used to design the vaguely polytheistic structures and cosmology of D&D worlds was an is both very dated and very much alien to modern sensibilities. However, if you don't buy into those structures for the purposes of fantasy the setting isn't going to work for you, it's just not.

If you fundamentally disagree with the moral architecture of a fictional setting that's fine. I feel that way about plenty of settings. Sometimes I can ignore the issue and enjoy the setting anyway, sometimes I can't. Opinions will vary from person to person about what is and is not acceptable. The Wall of the Faithless, however, was and remains an exceedingly minor plot element, and even in-universe it is understood to be a bad thing that Myrkil came up with and Ao let him get away with (this is somewhat informative about Ao, but that's all). Tweaking the setting very slightly so that Kelemvor just snaps his fingers and obliterates the souls of the Faithless right away - 'You believed in nothing so you get nothing' beings square in the wheelhouse of Faerunian afterlife judgments - is a barely noticeable change.

In many ways its demonstrative that this thread has focused on the Wall of the Faithless, a largely trivial aspect of the Forgotten Realms, rather than the Cataclysm, a hugely consequential aspect of Dragonlance. The Cataclysm is clear a fundamental issue with Dragonlance for many people, and I suspect that most fans of the setting get by just by ignoring its ethical implications entirely (several of the characters in setting certainly take that approach) or just shrug it off in that Weis and Hickman actually aren't especially inspired world-builders. The Wall, by contrast, can be finessed into some level of acceptability for most.

Lord Raziere

2020-11-01, 11:16 PM

The Wall is, by an immense margin, not even close to the worst thing that can happen to someone in the Faerunian afterlife.

you entirely missed the point.

The point is: this is an institutionally approved bad thing by the good gods.

are these other worse things also approved by the good gods? Yes or no?

If they are, they can go as well.

If they aren't, and the good gods are fighting against those things, they can stay. because the point is Not that I wanted it gone just because its bad. I want it gone because its bad and not treated as a bad thing.

Big difference. because if something is an injustice and intended as a injustice for me to fight or get rid of? Good thats me and the writers agreeing on what is right and wrong. but if they are trying to sell me on a bunch of people dying and being tortured in a wall for all eternity just because they didn't believe in some jerks as not something I should be doing something about, then we have a problem. because somewhere there is a moral failure here, and I don't think its me, the person who doesn't want people tortured for something as meaningless as rejecting the gods.

See what I mean? its not that its a bad thing, its that its a bad thing and is somehow treated as something thats not bad, or that its somehow acceptable. its not.

Clistenes

2020-11-02, 12:43 AM

Even so, he isnt a scientist in the way that a follower of Gond would be. He doesnt experiment or anything like that, he just sells his services at market like a dozen other different flavors of merchant.

And that's exactly my point. @Mark Hall said that craftsmen worship Gond, and I returned that Gond's dogma requires you to be an inventor and innovator, rather than a mere artisan.

Mechalich

2020-11-02, 12:45 AM

The point is: this is an institutionally approved bad thing by the good gods.

That's wrong.

The God of Death, and only the God Death, has jurisdiction over the Faithless. Their souls go to him (so far they've all been male), completely bypassing any chance for any other god to interact with them. If any of the good gods want to do something about one of the Faithless they have to walk on over to the City of Judgment, hat in hand, and beg the current god of death for a favor, with the understanding that none of the people holding that position so far is the type inclined to budge on the point.

Could the various good gods send minions to steal souls out of the Wall? Yes, probably, but it's probably not worth it. First, there are almost certainly souls who are both more deserving and suffering worse in the Lower Planes to save. Secondly, the God of Death presumably pays attention to the number of souls in the wall and gets more than a little angry when demons come along and take them away (okay, maybe Myrkul didn't but all the other gods in the role, even someone as horrific as Cyric, would be possessive about that sort of thing), and it is entirely within the power of a Greater Deity to annihilate literally millions of fiends for every soul (Mystra cuts lose in Hell during Elminster in Hell, that's kind of the benchmark for devastation). The math on demons stealing souls from the Wall simply doesn't work - it's a typical example of Realms math fail, which explains why only Chaotic Evil entities motivated by the evulz engage in something so counter-productive.

are these other worse things also approved by the good gods? Yes or no?

If they are, they can go as well.

The gods, good, evil, or neutral, don't control the cosmology of the Realms, Lord Ao does. Lord Ao is not a good-aligned entity. Insofar as alignment applies to him he's pretty clearly true neutral. Is Lord Ao kind of a jerk, yes, there is much evidence that this is so, of which the existence of the Wall is one modest exhibit.

The gods of the Realms are middle management in the function of their fictional reality. They have goals, and they exert themselves to pursue those goals, but they can't change the rules of reality, and should they attempt to try - as several more reckless deities have over the ages - the consequences tend to be terminal (though if an author likes them comic book death rules apply which is why Bane keeps coming back). Midnight and Kelemvor both tried to change things more toward 'good' upon ascending to godhood, and both ultimately failed to change the system. Midnight got tired of bashing her head against a wall and focused her efforts on things she actually could impact, while Kelemvor went through a weird Troy Denning induced personal crisis that basically transmuted him into Jergal 2.0 Uncaring Harder and decided it wasn't his place to mess around with the extant scheme.

the person who doesn't want people tortured for something as meaningless as rejecting the gods.

In the Forgotten Realms, rejecting the gods is not meaningless. It is distinctly meaningful. Post Time of Troubles, it is in fact existentially meaningful because Ao made it so that deities without worshippers perish (again, I'm quite sympathetic to the argument that Ao needs to clean up his act). The ethics of not worshipping the gods is mixed, because there are both benevolent and malevolent gods - mortals did manage to destroy the evil goddess Kiriansalee by erasing her from the memory of all her worshippers - so to that point there are at least some benefits, but worshipping the gods is definitely meaningful and it's certainly arguably that if say, atheism spread across the Realms like some kind of contagion, it would kill off the gods, and since the gods are actually essential to maintaining the structure of Faerun's operation (as the Spellplague made abundantly clear), that would be catastrophic.

It is therefore perfectly reasonable to argue that not worshipping the gods is act predicated on destroying the realms. This wouldn't exactly be evil per se, since the existence of the Realms is not inherently good, but it's the kind of thing that the gods, as literal manifestations of the status quo, would almost universally oppose.

Ultimately the Wall of the Faithless is a dumb thing, but it's mostly dumb for weird cross-edition world-building carryover reasons. Specifically it's the sort of thing that makes perfect sense to exist when the God of Death is evil, but doesn't make much sense when the God of Death isn't evil, but because nothing in the Realms can ever actually go away - Kiriansalee was almost entirely superfluous from the start, the drow don't need their own goddess of undeath, but they still brought her back anyway - the thing has stuck around.

Lord Raziere

2020-11-02, 01:10 AM

Thanks for making sure I never play Forgotten Realms then, if its that attached to being dumb on a cosmological level. No big loss for me, I never played in the setting in the first place.

Millstone85

2020-11-02, 05:27 AM

The God of Death, and only the God Death, has jurisdiction over the Faithless. Their souls go to him (so far they've all been male), completely bypassing any chance for any other god to interact with them. If any of the good gods want to do something about one of the Faithless they have to walk on over to the City of Judgment, hat in hand, and beg the current god of death for a favor, with the understanding that none of the people holding that position so far is the type inclined to budge on the point.In 5e, it is said that:

The servants of the gods come to collect the souls of the recently deceased and, if they are worthy, they are taken to their awaited afterlife in the deity's domain.
Souls that are unclaimed by the servants of the gods are judged by Kelemvor, who decides the fate of each one.

With I read as the opposite of your description. When a divinely-appointed outsider comes and says "You, you, you and you, with me", Kelemvor doesn't go "Nooo, this one is faithlesss, it is miiine!". Instead, it would be "Does nobody want that one? No? *sigh* Now what am I gonna do with you?".

Is that a change from previous editions? I thought it already worked that way.

Mechalich

2020-11-02, 06:08 AM

In 5e, it is said that:

The servants of the gods come to collect the souls of the recently deceased and, if they are worthy, they are taken to their awaited afterlife in the deity's domain.
Souls that are unclaimed by the servants of the gods are judged by Kelemvor, who decides the fate of each one.

With I read as the opposite of your description. When a divinely-appointed outsider comes and says "You, you, you and you, with me", Kelemvor doesn't go "Nooo, this one is faithlesss, it is miiine!". Instead, it would be "Does nobody want that one? No? *sigh* Now what am I gonna do with you?".

Is that a change from previous editions? I thought it already worked that way.

That's definitely a change, but not one that necessarily impacts the Faithless and False. As Hamishpence posted up thread, in 2e and 3e souls go to the Fugue Plane, where they wait to be picked up by a deity or just wander around if they don't have one, but the Faithless and False go directly to the City of Judgment, do not pass go, do not collect 200 dollars, get immediately dealt with by the god of death. No in 5e the difference would be that Kelemvor decided to take action regarding the unclaimed souls on the Fugue Plane, not that anything necessarily changed with regard to the Faithless and False.

Somewhat ironically, in 1e FR, pre Time of Troubles, essentially all the deities, regardless of alignment, were just left standing around on the Fugue Plane because Ao hadn't been suitably explicit about the whole 'provide a theologically suitably afterlife for your worshippers' part of the cosmology, and consequently the only souls that were being judged were either Myrkul's own worshippers - who also went directly to the city - and the Faithless and False.

That Ao allowed such a state to persist for thousands of years, and only did something about it when Bane and Myrkul forced his hand by stealing the Tablets of Fate, is a really crass bit of absentee landlording on his part, honestly.

Jason

2020-11-02, 11:12 AM

The Wall of the Faithless is a weird, and yes arguably ethically misaligned piece of the Faerunian cosmology, but it really sounds like a lot of people are transposing much broader objections to the idea of a post-death cosmic judgment by imperfect and dubiously moral entities that undergird the entire system onto this one really marginal concept.
Ding!
I don't suppose there are people who consciously think "I didn't really have a problem with souls being tormented in the Nine Hells or the Abyss for all eternity, but sticking all the atheists in a wall is the last straw that means I will never play this game," but that is how it appears.

In many ways its demonstrative that this thread has focused on the Wall of the Faithless, a largely trivial aspect of the Forgotten Realms, rather than the Cataclysm, a hugely consequential aspect of Dragonlance. The Cataclysm is clear a fundamental issue with Dragonlance for many people, and I suspect that most fans of the setting get by just by ignoring its ethical implications entirely (several of the characters in setting certainly take that approach) or just shrug it off in that Weis and Hickman actually aren't especially inspired world-builders. The Wall, by contrast, can be finessed into some level of acceptability for most.
Ding!
The Cataclysm really does have serious moral implications, but it's a fundamental part of the setting, to the point that just discarding it would be impossible.

noob

2020-11-02, 11:25 AM

Quertus

2020-11-02, 11:45 AM

This seems like there are multiple possible interpretations of the wall. Some that make the wall monstrous and others that don't. Why not choose the interpretation that lets the setting work, rather than the one that breaks it?

That their is some punishment for people who actively reject the gods seems logical, even if it's not nice. Its only when you can accidentally be faithless that it starts to be such a big problem.

So just use that interpretation.

you entirely missed the point.

The point is: this is an institutionally approved bad thing by the good gods.

See what I mean? its not that its a bad thing, its that its a bad thing and is somehow treated as something thats not bad, or that its somehow acceptable. its not.

Very much this.

The Wall of the Faithless - as it's been described to me, which does not match all of this thread, as even all of this thread does not match all of this thread - is plenty reason enough to murder all the FR gods and start over, IMO.

Ding!
I don't suppose there are people who consciously think "I didn't really have a problem with souls being tormented in the Nine Hells or the Abyss for all eternity, but sticking all the atheists in a wall is the last straw that means I will never play this game," but that is how it appears.

If you're playing D&D, you kinda buy into the notion that Hell happens. And that's... arguably cosmic justice. The Wall? Not so much.

Be "raised by wolves", you're in the wall. Bang! Not so fair now, is it?

Saint-Just

2020-11-02, 12:02 PM

I do consider the Wall an example of hilarious over-the top villainy and at the same time knowledge of it would never prevent me from playing in Faurun even if no tweaks are applied. I still want to say that "most characters don't know about it" is orthogonal to question of morality of its existence, and there is a significant fraction of players who would not want their characters to unwittingly support something they consider evil.

However people here have used seemingly contradictory desriptions of it's second creation: it was not Ao's will but the consensus of other gods; if so how can we consider Good gods good - oh no, it's purely Kelemvor's decision what to do with the Faithless; next I want to know why Kelemvor has created the Wall again after deciding it was bad? I understand that different sourcebooks for different editions sometimes contain contradictory information (and novels even more so), but it seems that either there is no full and consistent description of the situation, or if there is one, it has not been presented so far.

About Lower Planes: they have two qualities which distinguish them from the Wall: first, depending on who you ask they are either mostly natural because you get evil conditions from evil souls (more Planescape-ish view) or at least are run and maintained solely by Evil Gods/Archfiends/whatever, while the Wall has not been there for significant chunk of history (so it's not indispensable), has been disposed with and erected again (going back to the second paragraph it seems it was not merely Kelemvor looked at the new state of affairs and said "screw it, I like the old way more"). Second, Lower Planes are seen mostly as a punishment for harmful deeds (even if it's a vastly disproportional one), mostly ones which are considered harmful IRL or closely parallels them. Even being False, much less Faithless is really hard to interpret as a harmful deed (at least as far as ethos of this forum goes).

Keltest

2020-11-02, 12:14 PM

noob

2020-11-02, 12:22 PM

Theres a certain amount of "What did you expect to happen?" in the existence of the Wall. If you reject the idea of worship at all, and reject the gods, theyll reject you right back. You dont get to go to an appropriate afterlife, because you told the managers to shove off when they invited you in. But they have to do something with the Faithless souls, otherwise theyll just wander around for all eternity at best, or possibly eventually collapse into some sort of plane of anti-divinity if enough of them accumulate (which would be bad even if youre a Faithless, because the gods manage reality). So the Wall is basically the garbage disposal of the afterlife, cleaning out the buildup of unprocessable gunk that would otherwise be clinging to the system and causing problems.
The gods does not manage reality in the forgotten realms.
The proof is that when they were sent to the world where they started to behave like evil sadists rather than focus on reality things kept running as ever.
Unless you are telling me the gods were finding time to kill each other, betray their friends and manage reality while being as vulnerable as mortals.
Also if they were managing reality why would they kill and backstab each other at the risk of suddenly exploding the reality they are sitting on?
If they were in charge of reality the times of troubles proves that they should never had been because they were too much irresponsible.

There is two things that runs based on two gods: the weave runs on the current god of magic but magic is possible without the weave(it is just a lot more complicated to do so without exploding).
And the afterlife is managed by the current god of the dead.

So if the mortals killed all the gods except the god of the afterlife and told it "we keep a watch on you so that you judge the souls fairly" this setting would be a better place (minus the fact magic would be a bit more complicated to use)

Furthermore kelemvor rewarding and punishing faithless and false souls did prove that you did not need a wall to store faithless and false souls.

Friv

2020-11-02, 12:31 PM

Ding!
I don't suppose there are people who consciously think "I didn't really have a problem with souls being tormented in the Nine Hells or the Abyss for all eternity, but sticking all the atheists in a wall is the last straw that means I will never play this game," but that is how it appears.

Speaking as someone who is not a fan of the Wall, I'm not generally a fan of any eternal torment, but D&D gods aren't all good. The fact that people who dedicate themselves to evil fall under the purview of evil gods, who then do evil to them, makes sense. It's a terrible thing, and it's a thing that you can fight against, and presumably people have to be pretty bad to get there because even if you're mildly evil, if you're supporting a neutral god you end up in their domains.

The Wall is a bigger problem largely because it's saying "if you're not part of the general umbrella, the most Evil gods get to claim you, and no one seems to have a problem with that." As noted, "the Wall as a thing that the God of Death did as a scheme, which could then be torn down as the end of a campaign or otherwise opposed by the Gods of Good", is a much different thing than "the Wall as a thing that all of the elder Gods require to exist because people need to be punished into worshipping them." One is fine; it's a dark element, but one that only reflects on the evil beings of the setting. The other makes the Neutral and even Good gods complicit.

I would love if there were skirmishes along the Wall as the CG and CE outsiders fought to grab souls. I would love if Torm sent champions to tear down sections of it when the God of Death is distracted. There's a lot of cool story potential there, all of which is slashed away by "but you can't do anything about it because Reasons."

Ding!
The Cataclysm really does have serious moral implications, but it's a fundamental part of the setting, to the point that just discarding it would be impossible.

For Dragonlance, the Cataclysm itself is less of a problem than how it's presented. You can leave it in, and say "this was the major screw-up of the Good Gods, and they turned away from the world out of guilt and shame" rather than "the Gods of Good were the primary instigators and they turned away because people were angry at them and they got mad back."

Let the Cataclysm be the culmination of Takhisis's first set of evil plans, proof that it's possible for her to win. She swayed the Neutral Gods to her side, and it was seven against three; the best the gods of Good could do was try to offer a chance for salvation, which failed when Soth switched sides. The Balance doesn't exist because Good destroys everything if left alone, it exists because when things get tilted there's no reason to play nice and the gods of Evil will destroy everything.

Keltest

2020-11-02, 12:34 PM

The gods does not manage reality in the forgotten realms.
The proof is that when they were sent to the world where they started to behave like evil sadists rather than focus on reality things kept running as ever.
Unless you are telling me the gods were finding time to kill each other, betray their friends and manage reality while being as vulnerable as mortals.
Also if they were managing reality why would they kill and backstab each other at the risk of suddenly exploding the reality they are sitting on?
If they were in charge of reality the times of troubles proves that they should never had been because they were too much irresponsible.

They didnt call it the time of troubles just because the gods had avatars. Things were actively going awry without the gods to manage them. It wasnt immediate catastrophic failure like when Mystra was murdered during the Spellplague, but people were absolutely seeing effects all over Toril.

GrayDeath

2020-11-02, 12:40 PM

Let the Cataclysm be the culmination of Takhisis's first set of evil plans, proof that it's possible for her to win. She swayed the Neutral Gods to her side, and it was seven against three; the best the gods of Good could do was try to offer a chance for salvation, which failed when Soth switched sides. The Balance doesn't exist because Good destroys everything if left alone, it exists because when things get tilted there's no reason to play nice and the gods of Evil will destroy everything.

Thats how I handled it the 2 times I GMèd in Dragonlance.

But seeing one of the Groups was quite of the Evil kind, they actually tried to REPEAT the Cataclysm to make it totally clear to anyone that the only way to prosper was to join Team Evil.

Sadkly the campaign ended due to the main problem of all University Games: Students moving/having no time left.

Millstone85

2020-11-02, 12:41 PM

That's definitely a change, but not one that necessarily impacts the Faithless and False. As Hamishpence posted up thread, in 2e and 3e souls go to the Fugue Plane, where they wait to be picked up by a deity or just wander around if they don't have one, but the Faithless and False go directly to the City of Judgment, do not pass go, do not collect 200 dollars, get immediately dealt with by the god of death. No in 5e the difference would be that Kelemvor decided to take action regarding the unclaimed souls on the Fugue Plane, not that anything necessarily changed with regard to the Faithless and False.Here is the entire 5e description of the Fugue Plane:
Most humans believe the souls of the recently deceased are spirited away to the Fugue Plane, where they wander the great City of Judgment, often unaware they are dead. The servants of the gods come to collect such souls and, if they are worthy, they are taken to their awaited afterlife in the deity's domain. Occasionally, the faithful are sent back to be reborn into the world to finish work that was left undone.

Souls that are unclaimed by the servants of the gods are judged by Kelemvor, who decides the fate of each one. Some are charged with serving as guides for other lost souls, while others are transformed into squirming larvae and cast into the dust. The truly false and faithless are mortared into the Wall of the Faithless, the great barrier that bounds the City of the Dead, where their souls slowly dissolve and begin to become part of the stuff of the Wall itself.

Now, this might be an artifact of extreme summarization, but it seems the Wall comes late in the process.

Or perhaps they just decided to let it all very vague. That would be very 5e.

Saint-Just

2020-11-02, 12:54 PM

Theres a certain amount of "What did you expect to happen?" in the existence of the Wall. If you reject the idea of worship at all, and reject the gods, theyll reject you right back. You dont get to go to an appropriate afterlife, because you told the managers to shove off when they invited you in. But they have to do something with the Faithless souls, otherwise theyll just wander around for all eternity at best, or possibly eventually collapse into some sort of plane of anti-divinity if enough of them accumulate (which would be bad even if youre a Faithless, because the gods manage reality). So the Wall is basically the garbage disposal of the afterlife, cleaning out the buildup of unprocessable gunk that would otherwise be clinging to the system and causing problems.

Again, other D&D settings mange this reasonably ok (including settings which had at least some amount of crossover\plane-hopping adventures with Faerun or at least Faerunians) - you get where you are bound with or without gods. Even if for some reason Faerun do not have this mechanism (doubtful - what was the state of affairs before Myrkul?), do you really consider the idea "you did nothing for me so I will do nothing for you" reasonably compatible with the Goodness of Good gods (meanwhile Evil has no qualms and captures or tricks souls so they come to the Lower Plains even with the Wall).

As an aside: your two similes seems to be going in a way that really few on this forum, I think, would be willing to support. "You" (I mean someone Faithless) tell managers to show off when they invite you in and because of that "you" are garbage. Not a garbage-like person, but garbage which require compacting and storage, lest "you" pollute something. Deeeefinitely nothing wrong with that.

Keltest

2020-11-02, 01:04 PM

Again, other D&D settings mange this reasonably ok (including settings which had at least some amount of crossover\plane-hopping adventures with Faerun or at least Faerunians) - you get where you are bound with or without gods. Even if for some reason Faerun do not have this mechanism (doubtful - what was the state of affairs before Myrkul?), do you really consider the idea "you did nothing for me so I will do nothing for you" reasonably compatible with the Goodness of Good gods (meanwhile Evil has no qualms and captures or tricks souls so they come to the Lower Plains even with the Wall).

As an aside: your two similes seems to be going in a way that really few on this forum, I think, would be willing to support. "You" (I mean someone Faithless) tell managers to show off when they invite you in and because of that "you" are garbage. Not a garbage-like person, but garbage which require compacting and storage, lest "you" pollute something. Deeeefinitely nothing wrong with that.

I mean, its the entire afterlife system, right? Your soul goes to an afterlife where over time it is eventually transformed into "pure" essence of whatever afterlife you go to and you outright merge with the plane. Even the good alignments result in basically the same process happening as the wall of the faithless, theyre just nicer about it. Its just a question of where you go after your soul dissolves.

And yes. I think a good god literally kidnapping a soul who had explicitly rejected them and what they offered for whatever reason to force them into an afterlife that they also actively rejected is kind of incompatible with good. Its not "I wont do anything for you" its "I cant do anything for you that you havent already turned down."

Jason

2020-11-02, 01:18 PM

Keltest

2020-11-02, 01:34 PM

Is that still the case in 5th edition?

EDIT: Asmodeus' entry in the Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide seems to say that souls will be active and conscious in their respective afterlifes forever.

I suspect that they arent being literal for the sake of brevity. FR across editions is kind of tricky. Absent anything that explicitly contradicts older edition content, im inclined to go with setting inertia.

Besides which, if the souls dont actually do anything, one wonders why the evil gods would be particularly interested in them.

Saint-Just

2020-11-02, 01:49 PM

I mean, its the entire afterlife system, right? Your soul goes to an afterlife where over time it is eventually transformed into "pure" essence of whatever afterlife you go to and you outright merge with the plane. Even the good alignments result in basically the same process happening as the wall of the faithless, theyre just nicer about it. Its just a question of where you go after your soul dissolves.

And yes. I think a good god literally kidnapping a soul who had explicitly rejected them and what they offered for whatever reason to force them into an afterlife that they also actively rejected is kind of incompatible with good. Its not "I wont do anything for you" its "I cant do anything for you that you havent already turned down."

I do not agree that it's just a question where your soul goes. At least regarding the physical world consensus (even beyond this forum) seems to be that in the long run we all end up dead (even radical futuristic propositions still offer "merely" absurdly unimaginably long run). Not a reason to ignore what happens between now and the end.

Your second paragraph is going dangerously close to IRL I think. I will answer this: has this person ever said (let's ignore even the possibility that they changed their opinion) "I do not want to go to Arborea (Mount Celestia etc*)", or Good gods are incapable of recognizing anything but worship of them as desire to go to any of the Upper planes? In the last case their notions of Good and Evil are mostly orthogonal to human notions of the same, you can may as well call those notions Blue and Orange (which may be a fun way to play and it is not necessary a cosmic horror, but it's not a default way of Good and Evil in D&D any redaction). Remember I was asking about appropriately aligned souls, not "whoever you can grab". And asking questions is not kidnapping.

If there is any constructive discussion to be had and not merely "Wall is Evil/Wall is Neutral (necessary, or just is like Dolruth)" people more knowledgeable than me need to pin down two pieces of information: why has Kelemvor recreated the Wall (contradictory explanations were provided ITT) and how the system functioned before Myrkul (no explanation ITT).

*I can understand LN gods never bending the rules, but CN leaving all the extra souls to demons and none of them trying to make some "acquisitions" themselves? A little bit weak IMO.

Besides which, if the souls dont actually do anything, one wonders why the evil gods would be particularly interested in them.

Maybe they power the plane without dissolving, power stations instead of batteries. Though it would lead to a weird balance where new influx is less and less meaningful in comparison to whatever is stored and breaking the status quo is more difficult with every passing year (unless population grows and grows for millenia which doesn't seem to be the case)

Keltest

2020-11-02, 01:57 PM

Lord Raziere

2020-11-02, 02:16 PM

Basically, its almost impossible to be Faithless by accident. Somebody brought up a "lived their lives raised by wolves" person earlier, but there are gods of wild animals and the wilderness too, so doing things because you were brought up by wolves and believe the wolf way of doing this is correct would still almost certainly be enough to get you to that god's afterlife.

But then how, are there enough people to make the wall in the first place? Seems like its a pretty pointless wall to build then. If there are so few atheists because of the prayer ethics involved then there is no actual threat of reality collapsing, therefore its superfluous for them to build on top of the already clear threat of what happens without their worship. If its that serious, wouldn't atheists already be punished in LIFE by people socially ostracizing them for being so foolish as to invite the literal destruction of the world? Isn't what happens without their worship a more effective stick than some wall? Especially a wall no one knows about?

Even looking at this in the context of "no payer to god means reality starts falling apart" it doesn't make sense.

Jason

2020-11-02, 02:25 PM

"Almost no one qualifies" still means that a lot of people do end up there over sufficient lengths of time.

Keltest

2020-11-02, 02:30 PM

"Almost no one qualifies" still means that a lot of people do end up there over sufficient lengths of time.

Exactly. The Realms population is pretty big, and theres umpteen billion years of history. Even if only one person dies Faithless a year, by the current year thats still a decent chunk of souls.

PairO'Dice Lost

2020-11-02, 02:49 PM

Second, Lower Planes are seen mostly as a punishment for harmful deeds (even if it's a vastly disproportional one), mostly ones which are considered harmful IRL or closely parallels them. Even being False, much less Faithless is really hard to interpret as a harmful deed (at least as far as ethos of this forum goes).

Speaking as someone who is not a fan of the Wall, I'm not generally a fan of any eternal torment, but D&D gods aren't all good. The fact that people who dedicate themselves to evil fall under the purview of evil gods, who then do evil to them, makes sense. It's a terrible thing, and it's a thing that you can fight against, and presumably people have to be pretty bad to get there because even if you're mildly evil, if you're supporting a neutral god you end up in their domains.

The thing one has to remember is that the Great Wheel is not like various real-world religions where good people are meant to be rewarded and evil people are meant to be punished. People who are Good are judged by Good gods, and are rewarded if they were sufficiently Good and faithful and punished otherwise; people who are Evil are judged by Evil gods, and are rewarded if they were sufficiently Evil and faithful and punished otherwise.

Bob the LG commoner who primarily worships Heironeous but doesn't go out of his way to help people and Joe the CE commoner who primarily worships Erythnul but doesn't go out of his way to kill people are both likely going to end up on the bottom rung of the afterlife ladder subject to the lowest servants of their respective gods, with their memories gone and no particular perks of note, because they were underwhelming worshipers in life. Sir Bob the Hospitaler who primarily worships Kord and dedicates his life to crusading against evil and Dark Lord Joe the Necromancer who primarily worships Hextor and dedicates his life to crushing kingdoms under the heels of his skeletal army are both likely going to end up "skipping the line" to end up as a higher-ranking eladrin or devil and having a favored position in the afterlife, retaining their memories and a good chunk of their powers in life, because they were devoted to their gods' cause and significantly advanced said cause.

While the Lower Planes are pretty harsh afterlives for those who get the short end of the stick, and would definitely be considered punishment for a non-Evil soul that got sent there, an Evil soul getting sent to an Evil plane is in large part a reward for them, not a punishment. An Evil person is likely to view getting "redeemed to Good" much like a Good person is likely to view "falling to Evil" for two reasons, first because they've proven themselves disloyal and/or wishy-washy to their patron and not only lose out on the rewards of their original patron but are unlikely to be rewarded as well by their new patron, and second because the promise of a given Good afterlife isn't likely to appeal to them at all compared to the Evil one, e.g. to an LE person who wants to work their way up the Baatorian hierarchy and lord it over people for eternity, spending eternity in Arcadia where you have to (ugh) cooperate with people and be nice to your neighbors and stuff sounds like torture.

This is why the Wall of the Faithless seems so bad by comparison: it is purely a punishment, regardless of alignment or behavior in life, with no redeeming features that could be seen as a reward to those of an appropriate mindset; heck, for CE Faithless, getting stolen by demons and taken to the Abyss could be seen as moving up in the (after)world! Just being stuck in the Fugue Plain forever would be better, because you might be bored out of your mind for eternity and rejected by all rewarding afterlives (which, comparatively speaking, is punishment enough) but at least you can chat with other Faithless and aren't being slowly and painfully dissolved by supernatural mold.

I mean, its the entire afterlife system, right? Your soul goes to an afterlife where over time it is eventually transformed into "pure" essence of whatever afterlife you go to and you outright merge with the plane. Even the good alignments result in basically the same process happening as the wall of the faithless, theyre just nicer about it. Its just a question of where you go after your soul dissolves.

EDIT: Asmodeus' entry in the Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide seems to say that souls will be active and conscious in their respective afterlifes forever.

Both of these are true, because what happens in the afterlife depends on whether you had a patron god (outside the Realms, of course) and whether you were a sufficiently good servant of said patron.

A creature who has no patron god goes to the Outer Plane best matching their alignment and worldview, while a creature with a patron god goes to their patron's divine realm, at which point they become a petitioner. Importantly, one can worship a god of a different alignment than one's own and so ending up in a god's divine realm doesn't necessarily mean just ending up a slightly smaller area of the plane one was headed for anyway.

Petitioners lose their memories of their past life by default, but (A) whether this is immediate, gradual, or delayed varies by setting and plane--souls on the Fugue Plain retain their memories indefinitely until they're picked up by servants of their god, for instance, and planes where petitioners are basically "their form in life, but with elf ears or metal skin or whatever" generally have them retain memories longer than ones where petitioners are turned into animals or floating balls of light--and (B) deities and planar lords can grab a creature's memory core out of the Astral Plane to completely restore a petitioner's memories; usually this is a reward granted by gods to their favored and/or powerful servants, but this is also what happens if e.g. you make a pact with a devil to incarnate as a full devil with your memories intact rather than ending up as a shade or lemure.

Once a creature becomes a petitioner, they reside on that plane for however long it takes for them to reach that plane's version of enlightenment (or however long it takes for the more powerful beings there to tire of their presence and service), at which point they merge with the plane. This can happen very quickly, such as a soul in Lathander's afterlife who was already closely in sync with their plane's essence and god's dogma, ended up as a blade of grass or a celestial animal basking blissfully and mindlessly in the Morninglord's glory, and didn't retain any memories from life, or it can happen very slowly or not at all, such as a petitioner on Ysgard or Acheron who ended up there because that's where their god's realm is but isn't particularly in sync with the plane's ethos and is perfectly happy to fight for eternity rather than philosophize.

So a priest who says that a soul who doesn't pick a patron god is in danger of going to a "generic" afterlife and eventually fading away and a devil who says that a soul will stick around forever and so needs to choose their afterlife carefully are both correct and telling the truth...they're just leaving out some potentially-very-relevant details.

awa

2020-11-02, 02:49 PM

Exactly. The Realms population is pretty big, and theres umpteen billion years of history. Even if only one person dies Faithless a year, by the current year thats still a decent chunk of souls.

not to mention that there seems to be a fairly large number of "crazy" people in fiction who do evil and or stupid things just because. So the fact that some of those "crazy" people might try and reject the gods as part of their "crazy" does not strike me as implausible at all.

Lord Raziere

2020-11-02, 02:59 PM

Exactly. The Realms population is pretty big, and theres umpteen billion years of history. Even if only one person dies Faithless a year, by the current year thats still a decent chunk of souls.

Okay, but.....why?

Again, the whole destruction of the world thing seems a better stick than a being put into a wall, in the face of everything going pear-shaped when gods don't get their stuff, the wall is kind of an unnecessary thing on top of that. Either everyone worships them enough that its not actually needed or not enough people worships them and the apocalypse starts happening and thats reason enough to start worshipping them again.

so unless the gods are lying to people about the nature of the world on top of that...well it wouldn't surprise me, because this whole "gods need prayer to keep reality intact" thing? all news to me. before Mechalich's explanation I was under the impression that Forgotten Realms was just this campy generic fantasy setting from the 80's that you kind of just get books for by default because its a default setting for DnD so its like weird if you don't have it, and the books I have of it don't mention this kind of setting stuff at all. while the Drizzt books were always a bit vague on this sort of thing. not really focusing on the particulars.

Friv

2020-11-02, 03:05 PM

But then how, are there enough people to make the wall in the first place? Seems like its a pretty pointless wall to build then. If there are so few atheists because of the prayer ethics involved then there is no actual threat of reality collapsing, therefore its superfluous for them to build on top of the already clear threat of what happens without their worship. If its that serious, wouldn't atheists already be punished in LIFE by people socially ostracizing them for being so foolish as to invite the literal destruction of the world? Isn't what happens without their worship a more effective stick than some wall? Especially a wall no one knows about?

Okay, so I thought I would do some math, here. The following assumes that all of these statements are true:

1) Souls in the Fugue Plain pretty much stick around until someone does something to them; they don't naturally dissolve into the substance of the Plain the way that souls that resonate with a god's domain do.
2) When Myrkul built the Wall, he did so by gathering up all of the Faithless currently in the Fugue Plain, so we're counting from the dawn of the Realms rather than just over the 1600 years or so that he was around.
3) While souls dissolve into the Wall, their substance remains a part of it, so the Wall only grows, and never shrinks.

The total population of the Forgotten Realms is about 68 million sentient beings; I'm going to cheat and assume that life expectancy is about 68 years (with short-lived races like orcs and goblins offsetting long-lived ones like elves and dwarves) because it makes the math much easier and says about a million people die per year.

The City of Judgement holds people for almost exactly ten days while gods collect them, then decides their fates. Almost everyone who dies ends up there, and the non-transient population is very small, so you're looking at a population of about 27,000 - this fits with the description of the city as a "tightly-packed metropolis" but might be a bit low, so let's add a few thousand permanent residents and bump it up to 30,000.

The Wall of the Faithless surrounds the City of Judgement quite closely. A tightly-packed city to a medieval eye could reach 10,000 to 20,000 people per square mile, so let's call the City two square miles. This means that the Wall of the Faithless is about six miles long. Pictures of it from Neverwinter Nights appear to show that it is no more than three stories tall, or about nine people mortared on top of each other. The average person is about three and a half feet wide, so we're looking at about one hundred thousand souls in the Wall, plus whatever demons have managed to steal over the last thousand years. Let's assume they're moderately capable but need to be sneaky, and round up to 120,000 souls placed in the Wall.

Now, if Myrkul has the full range of 35,000 years of Forgotten Realms history to draw on, that means that only roughly 3.5 people per year are Faithless, or a rate of roughly one person per 300,000. If souls in the Fugue Plain do dissolve, the number of Faithless needs to rise to match; if he only had 3,500 years to draw on, you're looking at about one person per 30,000.

But it's a good statistical starting point!

*EDIT* Wait, no, my numbers assume that the Wall is only one person deep, which it explicitly is not. People are only about a foot across; if the Wall is five feet deep, you need five times as many people, but the demons probably aren't grabbing five times as many, so let's say 525,000 people. That means that if Myrkul has 35,000 years to draw on, you get 15 people per year, or one in 66,666. If he only has 3,500 years you're looking at one in 6,666 people being Faithless, which seems high.

JadedDM

2020-11-02, 03:10 PM

...because this whole "gods need prayer to keep reality intact" thing? all news to me.
It's a relatively new thing. After the Time of Troubles, Ao declared that from that point on, gods would draw their power from their followers directly, meaning if nobody believed in you, you'd basically cease to exist. This was meant as a punishment to the gods, for not doing enough to take care of their followers.

(At least, this is what I remember from reading the Avatar trilogy, which I haven't read in years, so I might be misremembering.)

awa

2020-11-02, 03:24 PM

Okay, so I thought I would do some math, here. The following assumes that all of these statements are true:

1) Souls in the Fugue Plain pretty much stick around until someone does something to them; they don't naturally dissolve into the substance of the Plain the way that souls that resonate with a god's domain do.
2) When Myrkul built the Wall, he did so by gathering up all of the Faithless currently in the Fugue Plain, so we're counting from the dawn of the Realms rather than just over the 1600 years or so that he was around.
3) While souls dissolve into the Wall, their substance remains a part of it, so the Wall only grows, and never shrinks.

The total population of the Forgotten Realms is about 68 million sentient beings; I'm going to cheat and assume that life expectancy is about 68 years (with short-lived races like orcs and goblins offsetting long-lived ones like elves and dwarves) because it makes the math much easier and says about a million people die per year.

The City of Judgement holds people for almost exactly ten days while gods collect them, then decides their fates. Almost everyone who dies ends up there, and the non-transient population is very small, so you're looking at a population of about 27,000 - this fits with the description of the city as a "tightly-packed metropolis" but might be a bit low, so let's add a few thousand permanent residents and bump it up to 30,000.

The Wall of the Faithless surrounds the City of Judgement quite closely. A tightly-packed city to a medieval eye could reach 10,000 to 20,000 people per square mile, so let's call the City two square miles. This means that the Wall of the Faithless is about six miles long. Pictures of it from Neverwinter Nights appear to show that it is no more than three stories tall, or about nine people mortared on top of each other. The average person is about three and a half feet wide, so we're looking at about one hundred thousand souls in the Wall, plus whatever demons have managed to steal over the last thousand years. Let's assume they're moderately capable but need to be sneaky, and round up to 120,000 souls placed in the Wall.

Now, if Myrkul has the full range of 35,000 years of Forgotten Realms history to draw on, that means that only roughly 3.5 people per year are Faithless, or a rate of roughly one person per 300,000. If souls in the Fugue Plain do dissolve, the number of Faithless needs to rise to match; if he only had 3,500 years to draw on, you're looking at about one person per 30,000.

But it's a good statistical starting point!

*EDIT* Wait, no, my numbers assume that the Wall is only one person deep, which it explicitly is not. People are only about a foot across; if the Wall is five feet deep, you need five times as many people, but the demons probably aren't grabbing five times as many, so let's say 525,000 people. That means that if Myrkul has 35,000 years to draw on, you get 15 people per year, or one in 66,666. If he only has 3,500 years you're looking at one in 6,666 people being Faithless, which seems high.

that actually makes a really good indirect point against the wall, if I see an important wall in a planner environment, as important as this wall is supposed to be I want it to be BIG but three stories tall and a couple miles long, 5feet deep that's not impressive at all. But to get an impressive wall (aka a wall worth having) a lot more people need to be ending up in the wall.

Well great now you ruined it, I dont know that I can get behind a boring small wall of trapped souls, and I cant have it both ways either the wall is small and unimpressive or too many people are going into it to make sense.

In a different setting aka one that had existed millions or billions of years that would solve it as would if the population was much higher say by drawing from other planes, but as it is those calculations did more to sour me on the idea of the wall then anything else.

Anymage

2020-11-02, 03:52 PM

Theres a certain amount of "What did you expect to happen?" in the existence of the Wall. If you reject the idea of worship at all, and reject the gods, theyll reject you right back. You dont get to go to an appropriate afterlife, because you told the managers to shove off when they invited you in. But they have to do something with the Faithless souls, otherwise theyll just wander around for all eternity at best, or possibly eventually collapse into some sort of plane of anti-divinity if enough of them accumulate (which would be bad even if youre a Faithless, because the gods manage reality). So the Wall is basically the garbage disposal of the afterlife, cleaning out the buildup of unprocessable gunk that would otherwise be clinging to the system and causing problems.

Is this "souls in the fugue plane stick around forever unless taken or actively broken down" thing canon? Because if this is the one plane where souls don't eventually merge into it, that would be two things. Odd, in that it's such an exception to the normal planar rules. And being such an oddity would make me wonder why it was written that way.

It's a relatively new thing. After the Time of Troubles, Ao declared that from that point on, gods would draw their power from their followers directly, meaning if nobody believed in you, you'd basically cease to exist. This was meant as a punishment to the gods, for not doing enough to take care of their followers.

(At least, this is what I remember from reading the Avatar trilogy, which I haven't read in years, so I might be misremembering.)

Didn't that also include the gods pressuring Kelemvor to put the wall back? They took their worshipers for granted until Ao made worshipers required. Instead of working to mend bridges with their followers, they instituted an "or else" threat. At least that's what I heard in some of the other wall threads.

At which point, that would be when good gods would speak up in horror. If they don't, I seriously question if they're actually good.

Saint-Just

2020-11-02, 03:54 PM

Theoretically, to qualify as Faithless you do have to explicitly reject the whole thing, yes. You can totally say that Bane is just a powerful devil and not actually a god and legitimately believe that, and you wont be Faithless if you also follow Chauntea's faith and earnestly believe in her power and divinity, or even just dont explicitly reject it. And even if deep down you didnt believe in Chauntea's divinity either, but followed the rituals anyway, you would just be False, not Faithless (and even then theres an argument to be made against being False if you believed in the rituals and the ideals even without calling Chauntea a literal god).

Basically, its almost impossible to be Faithless by accident. Somebody brought up a "lived their lives raised by wolves" person earlier, but there are gods of wild animals and the wilderness too, so doing things because you were brought up by wolves and believe the wolf way of doing this is correct would still almost certainly be enough to get you to that god's afterlife.

Between your last post and this one the only post is mine, so I presume that you are answering to me.

Except you really don't.

I am of two minds whether to write another bunch of examples and parallels or just reiterate my questions.

Screw it, I'll do both

People here have posted quotes which seem to support your interpretations of Falsity and Faithlessnes. People also posted quotes which seem to contradict it. You are not obligated to make a consistent system out of the mess which a popular D&D setting that was described by many peoples decades apart truly is. But your interpretations are merely your interpretations, not something that any sane man would conclude having read every canonical book.

I agree that "raised by the wolves" is an extreme example, still, for that you do not provide which god would consider the wolf way as a worship of them, merely state that some surely exist. To be honest for more obscure gods even if you provide a name and a one-paragraph creed people will still argue that wolf way is\isn't a worship of them (as you noticed more mainstream gods' creeds elicited no unanimous agreement ). I find your pre-commitment to the idea that such god should exist more telling: you don't remember every name and creed (most people don't) but your idea of that setting is there is a god for everyone willing to worship. Except it's not an actual world, but fantasy books written by not too large amount of people, so there is nothing improbable in them having overlooked this or that niche (especially if you do not stretch definitions as far as you can but take them on the face value). I find idea of "gods will take in anyone they can" appealing but it's still one. possible. interpretation.

I also want to give a couple examples which should have been on their way to LG and N afterlives normally but are Faithless and False.

Faithless LG who declares "Good have no hands but our hands". May be even a paladin (would Faerun peculiarities override the general rule of nontheistic divine empowerement, or would it merely change the afterlife?). Fights the good fight, walks the good walk, in favor of niceness and community, the works. Pointedly refuses to worship any god (maybe because they are PC run by one of the forumites who have a beef with the Wall, maybe they are just odd). If anyone is Faithless they are. Unless you say that you cannot reach LG without praying to god(s) - again, heavy IRL baggage - they are a shoe-in for Celestia in any other setting. Wall for them. Good god can give them a lift but wouldn't (if you say god can't go to TL;DR).

False N who was really inspired in his youth by Gond. Made a formal pledge or whatnot (I assume that even if such things are not explicitly mentioned they should exist by the virtue of "like reality, unless noted" - unless you say that religious institutions make it purposefully hard to lock the worship to a particular god which seems to run contrary to gods needing worship). Tinkered (not in the sense of making things out of tin) with a few things trying to better the process of his craft. Actually invents something more-or-less useful but which needs significant amount of money to begin the process. Fails to convince anyone with money; tries to make it small-scale in his workshop, goes nowhere, loses money on that. Burns out, switches to more worldly ambitions like marrying a daughter of a more important guildsman and working extra-hard and extra-long while he's young and strong so in ten or twenty years he can have a significant business mostly running by itself. Mostly succeeds, lives long and prospers. Worships Gond with his words, nobody with his heart. Sits on the guild council which decides to stifle new invention in his trade because it upsets existing balance, votes in favor (let's say by offering inventor a cushy pension as long as nobody knows about their invention and by threatening to ruin their reputation if anybody finds out so inventor would have at least move from that city). Not that Evil, not really Good. False.

TL;DR

Why Kelemvor has recreated the Wall?

How the system has worked before Myrkul?

Bonus: do you consider refusing to worship a god\gods a harmful act deserving punishment?

<Lower Planes are not punishment it's what Evil people want>

I have seen a lot of disputes on this very forum, and seen long-standing members with significant D&D experience come on both sides of the issue and on third and fourth side too (e.g. "Evil people think they want Lower Planes but if they accurately knew what awaits them they would not want them, because most are horrifically tortured until they are either destroyed for soul power or transformed into a cannon fodder for the Blood War losing all memories and personality in the process and odds of instant promotion are infinitesimally low"). I gave up trying to make sense of it and not for the lack of trying.

not to mention that there seems to be a fairly large number of "crazy" people in fiction who do evil and or stupid things just because. So the fact that some of those "crazy" people might try and reject the gods as part of their "crazy" does not strike me as implausible at all.

Let me just state two options which that leads to: crazy people do not deserve to be punished for craziness but are punished? Gods are in-game Evil. Crazy people deserve to be punished and are punished accordingly? ___ ___ ___ ____ (filling in the blanks left as an exercise for the reader)

awa

2020-11-02, 05:07 PM

Let me just state two options which that leads to: crazy people do not deserve to be punished for craziness but are punished? Gods are in-game Evil. Crazy people deserve to be punished and are punished accordingly? ___ ___ ___ ____ (filling in the blanks left as an exercise for the reader)

were not talking about people with mental illness that's different, we are talking about the fairly common fiction trope of the "crazy" person. Were talking about joker knock offs whose madness somehow makes them super-effective and efficient serial killers, were talking about the worshipers of lovecraftian evils who can somehow be "mad" enough to want to destroy the world but not so mad that it in anyway hinders their ability to run over-complicated conspiracies. Its the evil wizards who are creating horrible abominations in their labs so the pcs have something interesting to fight. Were talking about all those villains that are like this because the writer/ DM never bothered to give them a coherent motivation so just said oh hes "crazy".

Don't confuse the two they are very different

Saint-Just

2020-11-02, 05:17 PM

Probably shouldn't have reacted the way I did, especially since I pretty much asked the same question in TL;DR only in less confrontational manner. The question as formulated in TL;DR still stands.

Keltest

2020-11-02, 11:00 PM

@Saint-just

Thats a lot of text, to the point where im kind of having trouble understanding your actual issues. I didnt bring up the specific god for the wolves because its not really relevant. FR has gods coming out of every crevice, finding one is not hard. Sylvanus would be my default pick for the wolves, if youre curious. God of Nature. Nice and generic, yeah? And thats the big thing with them. Lots of gods have such a broad profile that fitting in them in some capacity is easy.

Your Faithless example isnt possible in the Realms. Paladins are empowered by the gods, they NEED to worship one to function as a paladin. But lets say he's a Fighter then instead. Ok, he specifically (and inexplicably) rejects the idea of the gods as fundamental concepts. Ok, he's Faithless. He made his choice to separate himself from the nice parts of the system. I dont know why he would do that, but he did, and the good gods wont invalidate his free will like that and force him into a system he specifically and explicitly doesnt want to be in.

And your false example... why doesnt he just start worshiping Waukeen instead of Gond? He stopped being an inventor and became a merchant. Sure, he's false but... ultimately he's making a choice to act in a way he knows isnt in accordance with the god he nominally pays homage to. There are other gods he could pray to that better suit him, so why wouldnt he?

As to your TL;DRs...

Why did he remake the wall? Because he was compelled to. How did it work before? No idea. Its a fictional setting and i dont think any material from that time was written.

As for my personal opinion on worship, i dont think its actively harmful, per se, so much as passively harmful. The gods are real. They exist and have power. Actively denying that (as opposed to disliking them for their profiles) just creates trouble for no gain.

Solamnicknight

2020-11-02, 11:22 PM

The wall of the faithless always bugged me as did the Cataclysm and I’m a big fan of Dragonlance. I actually think with the Cataclysm something interesting about Dragonlance is that the gods there are siblings. Also the Kingpriest trilogy details that the Kingpriest had gotten to the point where he was targeting for execution/slavery followers of good aligned gods that didn’t follow the Istarian view of those gods. Add to that him pretty much wiping out or enslaving all the followers of the evil/neutral gods, it makes sense in a way that the gods flipped their lid being that they are literal bickering siblings, does it make it any less disturbing? No and Raistlin may have had the right idea trying to take them out even if it didn’t work out for him or Krynn. Also it’s not like the only horrible idea the Dragonlance gods had, ie putting father chaos in a gemstone that could be cracked open.

Mechalich

2020-11-03, 12:07 AM

Why Kelemvor has recreated the Wall?

Bad copypasta. Seriously, that's the real answer.

At the end of Crucible: the Trial of Cyric the Mad Kelemvor changed the Wall into a sort of metaphorical construct that basically gave them the Rowan Atkinson 'Welcome to Hell' treatment for atheists, 'You must be feeling a right bunch of nitwits,' for all eternity. That was in 1998. But subsequent sources were written by people who probably hadn't read that particular novel (can't say I blame them) and reverted to the older explanation published in Faiths & Avatars in 1996, which was in turn derived from the explanation of how the Wall worked in the novel Waterdeep originally published in 1989.

This sort of is was and is extremely common in the 'really big' RPG settings. The oWoD was rife with one other referencing some thing or event that some other author had already invalidated and/or various authors waging actual out and out feuds across the pages of published supplements.

How the system has worked before Myrkul?

Nobody knows. Myrkul became the god of death sometime during the reign of Netheril, meaning around -3000 DR. Faerunian history, in the sense of a time when actual sapient beings were living on the planet in a recognizable way, begins with the Sarrukh empires around -35,000 DR. Presumably Jergal was the God of Death at that time. What Jergal did with the Faithless is unknown, because in general pre-Netheril timeframes in the Realms are minimally supported at best. You simply aren't supposed to play during them.

Cyric, for the record, became god of death in 1358 DR, but then lost that portion of his portfolio to Kelemvor in 1368 DR. Kelemvor functioned as God of Death from 1368 to 1385 (when the Spellplague happened, and through the realms into 'doesn't count' territory). Following the Second Sundering - which restored the Realms to something resembling normal and updated it to 5e - from 1482 to 1487 DR, Kelemvor remained God of Death, but Myrkul was also resurrected and placed alongside Kelemvor and Jergal as a subordinate death god. Curiously, this may mean that it was Myrkul who restored the Wall of the Faithless to its earlier form following the Second Sundering rather than Kelemvor at all.

Is this all confusing and kind of ridiculous, oh yes, yes it is, but it's pretty much par for the course with any RPG setting that feels obligated to react to major changes in the rules through massive cosmology-altering metaplot events as the Realms does.

PairO'Dice Lost

2020-11-03, 01:08 AM

Faithless LG who declares "Good have no hands but our hands". May be even a paladin (would Faerun peculiarities override the general rule of nontheistic divine empowerement, or would it merely change the afterlife?).

Paladins in FR draw power from a patron deity rather than Law and Good as cosmic forces, and FR druids draw power from nature deities instead of the abstract force of Nature. Whether they could draw power from a non-deific source and just don't or whether the gods "intercept" paladin-y and druidic magic and force mortals to go through them in the same way that arcanists are forced to use the Weave or Shadow Weave for arcane magic is an open question.

I have seen a lot of disputes on this very forum, and seen long-standing members with significant D&D experience come on both sides of the issue and on third and fourth side too (e.g. "Evil people think they want Lower Planes but if they accurately knew what awaits them they would not want them, because most are horrifically tortured until they are either destroyed for soul power or transformed into a cannon fodder for the Blood War losing all memories and personality in the process and odds of instant promotion are infinitesimally low"). I gave up trying to make sense of it and not for the lack of trying.

I've also seen some arguments against the idea that the Lower Planes are actual rewarding afterlives for Evil characters, and in basically every case it involves (A) a conflation of modern monotheistic morality with D&D polytheistic morality or (B) assuming that Evil people aren't actually, y'know, Evil.

Regarding the "fourth side" example, keep in mind that the powerful necromancers and high priests and such we're talking about being rewarded by an Evil plane's afterlife are the kind of people who can ask their god (or fiend patron) about the afterlife, pop on in via planar travel agic to see how things work, and so on, and would have the means the make the necessary bargains to ensure a cushy afterlife, so they're not gonna be surprised by how things work. It's the low-level wishy-washy lowercase-e evil folks who might have sudden regrets after finding out they're going to be put through the wringer and turned into a lemure...but then, a good person might not want to spend eternity as a blade of grass in Lathander's divine realm or a celestial animal in Chauntea's divine realm, either.

How did it work before? No idea. Its a fictional setting and i dont think any material from that time was written.

Presumably Jergal was the God of Death at that time. What Jergal did with the Faithless is unknown, because in general pre-Netheril timeframes in the Realms are minimally supported at best. You simply aren't supposed to play during them.

We do know for sure that Jergal was God of Death at the time, because multiple sources describing the gods of death have him as the first one, but details of his reign are scant. Here's basically all that we know about Jergal's policy toward the dead during his tenure:

As the Judge of the Damned and the Grim Reaper, it was said that only Jergal knew the final disposition of every spirit and the day of every being’s final death, and he was never wrong. The ultimate tyrant, no one unintentionally escaped Jergal’s grasp once they fell under the aegis of his portfolio. He was very jealous of his position, and even those of other faiths who sought to resurrect companions had to placate him or risk his retribution.
[...]
He had total command over the undead, animating, creating, summoning, dismissing, and dispelling them at will. It was said that with his gaze Jergal could learn the sum total of a being’s life, joys, fears, acts, and ultimate demise, and simply by inscribing a mortal’s name on his voluminous scroll, he could inflict a being’s fated demise immediately. His touch instilled fear, drained a being’s life force, or could banish his victim to the realm of the dead.
[...]
Undeath was not an escape or a reward; it was simply a duty of a chosen few who served the Lord of the End of Everything.

So it's a reasonable assumption that before the Wall was a thing any Faithless or False ended up in Jergal's divine realm, which seems to have been a Niflheim- or Hades-style "once a soul enters they're stuck in a pale shadow of life forever" sort of place, and that he "recycled" a good number of them as undead servants on Toril, but that's an extrapolation rather than canon.

hamishspence

2020-11-03, 01:12 AM

Bad copypasta. Seriously, that's the real answer.

At the end of Crucible: the Trial of Cyric the Mad Kelemvor changed the Wall into a sort of metaphorical construct that basically gave them the Rowan Atkinson 'Welcome to Hell' treatment for atheists, 'You must be feeling a right bunch of nitwits,' for all eternity. That was in 1998.

I've got Crucible, and I don't remember it ever going into any detail about the Wall, not even toward the end. It focused on what happened to the False, not the Faithless.

LibraryOgre

2020-11-03, 01:34 AM

And your false example... why doesnt he just start worshiping Waukeen instead of Gond? He stopped being an inventor and became a merchant. Sure, he's false but... ultimately he's making a choice to act in a way he knows isnt in accordance with the god he nominally pays homage to. There are other gods he could pray to that better suit him, so why wouldnt he?

And I would not call such a person False... he didn't betray Gond, he just decided that Waukeen was a better fit for him.

As to the outer planes and the standard disposition of souls, I sum it up that the plane you go to is a reflection of how you believe the world SHOULD work, and secretly thought it always did... i.e. a reflection of your alignment. Chaotic Evil people usually go to something near the Abyss, where the strong prey upon the weak and someone's word is only as good as your ability to make them keep it. Most people sent there wind up getting used as fuel for some infernal device but, notably, they are not sent there by the multiverse trying to punish them for being bad... they're sent to where their soul has the most resonance. Some Chaotic Evil people will wind up in the Abyss and immediately start kicking ass and gaining power, because they were powerful before death. But, most people, when put in a dog eat dog situation overestimate how tough they will be, especially compared to the big dogs, like greater fiends.

hamishspence

2020-11-03, 02:26 AM

Some Chaotic Evil people will wind up in the Abyss and immediately start kicking ass and gaining power, because they were powerful before death. But, most people, when put in a dog eat dog situation overestimate how tough they will be, especially compared to the big dogs, like greater fiends.

Especially when everybody starts as an Int 3 mane, with the only way to get promotion, being to distinguish oneself from the rest. That's not going to be easy, or happen quickly.

PairO'Dice Lost

2020-11-03, 02:48 AM

Most people sent there wind up getting used as fuel for some infernal device but, notably, they are not sent there by the multiverse trying to punish them for being bad... they're sent to where their soul has the most resonance.

No one in the Abyss gets used as fuel for an infernal device, that's Baator. :smallwink:

But you're right. The pull of Outer Planes on souls is often described in D&D novels as a sort of "spiritual gravity" drawing them to where the best belong. It's not a deliberate choice, it's a natural attraction.

hamishspence

2020-11-03, 03:20 AM

What Jergal did with the Faithless is unknown, because in general pre-Netheril timeframes in the Realms are minimally supported at best. You simply aren't supposed to play during them.

In Crucible, the implication is "nothing" - Kelemvor was faithless, and they talk about what would have happened to him.

Kelemvor: "Where would you have put me- the home for the terminally confused?"
Jergal: "I would not have put you anywhere. Myrkul would have put you in his Wall of Bones, and who can say what Cyric would have done?"

Keltest

2020-11-03, 08:12 AM

As far as the evil afterlives go, my stance has always been that they have the potential to be as rewarding to evil folks as the good ones are to good folks, its just that what evil folks want (ie to be on the top of the food chain) isnt feasible to have for everybody there by definition, and everybody there is equally vile and ambitious. Each evil person, when they die, doesnt think "wow, this is going to suck" they think "Im so cool and evil, i'm obviously going to be able to rule the roost as soon as i get there" and then... just dont. Its not a deliberate punishment, its just the natural consequence of locking a bunch of evil people in a room together forever.

Anymage

2020-11-03, 08:33 AM

I'm wondering now. If The Wall truly is just some really nasty implications of writers dropping the ball, what would be the best fixes/retcons following their "it's 2020 and it's time we cleaned up a lot of the unfortunate implications in our writing" stance. What should they update it to in their setting bible?

Wall of Mirrors that reflects images of your life instead of being a prison? And should that just be retconned back, or should there be an event where good gods speak up and remind Kelemvor that it's really uncool and he happens to agree and makes a change. Letting the faithless wander the fugue plane on their own (with only other faithless for company and no protection from demon raiders) if they're so antitheistic that they won't even settle in Kelemvor's domain-city? Something else?

Millstone85

2020-11-03, 10:51 AM

Its not a deliberate punishment, its just the natural consequence of locking a bunch of evil people in a room together forever.This in itself would be a punishment, if we knew of someone doing the locking. And the real-life equivalent would be a prison where the inmates are left unsupervised and free to assault each other.

Yet, I must confess, I rarely feel uncomfortable with this depiction of Hell in fiction. It is further sold by the idea that the Great Wheel just has alignment attraction as a force.

What should they update it to in their setting bible?First, I would have it reiterate the Planescape standard.

When a creature dies, its soul departs its body, leaves the Material Plane, travels through the Astral Plane, and goes to abide on the plane where the creature's deity resides. If the creature didn't worship a deity, its soul departs to the plane corresponding to its alignment.Then I would have it explain that many souls instead become lost in the Shadowfell, where they are preyed upon by creatures of undeath. Kelemvor's City of the Dead is on that plane, where it serves as a beacon to guide lost souls to their proper afterlife.

Any similarity with the Raven Queen's stronghold of Letherna, as depicted in 4e Nentir Vale or 5e Critical Role, would be absolutely deliberate.

Jason

2020-11-03, 11:18 AM

I've also seen some arguments against the idea that the Lower Planes are actual rewarding afterlives for Evil characters, and in basically every case it involves (A) a conflation of modern monotheistic morality with D&D polytheistic morality or (B) assuming that Evil people aren't actually, y'know, Evil.
The game is written by modern people, you know. The modern attitudes towards gender roles in all versions of D&D are perhaps the most obvious anachronisms, but modern morality probably runs a close second.

Evil people are evil, sure, but modern monotheistic morality, if I may use the term, has always maintained that evil behavior cannot actually make anyone happy. Any evil person who thinks they are happy doing evil is fooling themself. They might get a momentary thrill from doing evil acts, but it is not lasting happiness and only makes them more miserable afterward. Insert your own drug addiction analogy here.

Xervous

2020-11-03, 11:22 AM

Vahnavoi

2020-11-03, 11:33 AM

The game is written by modern people, you know. The modern attitudes towards gender roles in all versions of D&D are perhaps the most obvious anachronisms, but modern morality probably runs a close second.

This is also related to edition differences. 2nd edition of AD&D made Alignment hew closer to contemporary morality for marketing reasons. Not that Gygax's Alignment was particularly authentically pre-modern, but all the same it can be said any system level commitment to pre-modern morality ended at the same time as Gygax's involvement. Serious commitment to non-contemporary moral systems is at best found in specific setting supplements.

There's also conflict between writers of D&D fiction versus D&D gaming material. If, say, Ed Greenwood had his way, Forgotten Realms definitely wouldn't have either modern morality or gender roles, given what he's said in Candlekeep (or whatever that site was where he posts his stuff).

Saint-Just

2020-11-03, 12:21 PM

Keltest

2020-11-03, 12:49 PM

I want to reiterate that I at the same time do not consider the Wall a big hangup for roleplay, but as far as moral navel-gazing goes I consider it cruel and either pointless (if it's removal would not change the setting significantly - it seems that that is at lest somewhat close enough to your position) or unfair (if gods get noticeable portion of current worshipers because of the Wall's threat). Ao is cruel and dumb and detracts from the setting is a sentiment i can get behind.

Yes. Do we have proof that he would consider "living wild" as sufficient worship of him? Or, on the meta-level, proof that we need to read all descriptions of portfolios and creeds to be maximally inclusive? I again and again see interpretations instead of sources. Interpretation is necessary to create a semblance of a living world out of sources but most people don't think their interpretation is the only possible one. Wild animals and feral creatures are within his portfolio. They belong to him by default. Short of this scenario no longer being hypothetical and making it into a published story somewhere, i dont think we can get much stronger proof. Youre picking at the edge cases, of course hard and explicit examples are going to be few and far between.

Desire to have a good\decent\bearable afterlife and desire to worship a deity are hardly linked if we assume that sentient species of the Faerun (including humans) are sufficiently close to IRL humans in their thinking. It is impossible that any significant number will prefer the Wall to the Upper Planes (some are preferring Lower Planes to the merest possibility of the Wall). You must be saying that "you were warned that will happen" justifies the Wall, I think? Im not clear on what your point is here. Yeah, they probably would prefer the Upper Planes to the Wall. But if they died Faithless then evidently their conviction in avoiding the gods was stronger than their desire to go to the Upper Planes. I dont think they "deserve" to go there any more than somebody who jumps out of a plane with a broken parachute "deserves" to hit the ground. But its going to happen regardless of what they "deserve" and they had the opportunity to change that.

I dunno, what about the hamishpence's post on the p. 4? Person get judged False because he chose Torm? Yes, I know, Cyric, still doesnt answer the question why he didn't switch.

And about the second example deim the same post - a god was happy to take a person, who was most likely LG, or at least L or G, but... according to some divine legalities he wasn't his god, so Wall it is?

Im not sure which example youre talking about. For your average joe, a lot of major gods have "Patron of X profession" as part of their profile. Chauntea is patron of farmers, for example. Waukeen is patron of merchants. Tymora, to a point, even is a patron of adventurers who otherwise lack a specific patron.

Its not like you need to sign a big contract or anything. If you live your life more or less according to their tenets, they count as your patron.

Makes everyone who compelled him to (Again, was it AO, or consensus of normal Gods?) participants in cruelty. And if it did work before the Wall cannot be necessary. Its kind of lost in the morass of the FR publication history, but i believe Ao is the one who made the stand on the wall, specifically. The other gods just wanted Kelemvor to stop playing favorites because it was causing problems for them.

It's specifically patronage and living up to ideals to at least some degree that is required. Atheists would be weird in Faerun, maltheists/misotheists (aka "Gods are bad and they should feel bad") are more probable, Athar ideas (not really atheism either) also may have some cause to exist.

And going back to Doylist reasons it's not very specifically atheist PC that explanation was supposed to prevent but anyone who refused to put "patron god" on their character list.

P.S Would you consider refusing to worship gods in other Great Wheel settings also "passively harmful" or there is a specific reason why it is harmful in Faerun?
Like ive been saying, there are a LOT of gods in the Realms. Managing to avoid living up to any of their profiles would be a feat and a half.

As for other settings, it depends. In Dragonlance, it was the status quo for a couple hundred years after the cataclysm, but it led to the formation of a bunch of largely malicious cults that largely took advantage of desperate people, promising divine clerical powers without having any so they could take peoples wealth and resources. In Eberron, i dont think the gods even provably exist, and certainly dont act directly on the world or even their followers. There, it wouldnt hurt anything, but i cant really imagine why you would want to live like that either, since at least by worshiping you theoretically believe something better will eventually come your way.

PairO'Dice Lost

2020-11-03, 01:38 PM

The game is written by modern people, you know. The modern attitudes towards gender roles in all versions of D&D are perhaps the most obvious anachronisms, but modern morality probably runs a close second.

Evil people are evil, sure, but modern monotheistic morality, if I may use the term, has always maintained that evil behavior cannot actually make anyone happy. Any evil person who thinks they are happy doing evil is fooling themself. They might get a momentary thrill from doing evil acts, but it is not lasting happiness and only makes them more miserable afterward. Insert your own drug addiction analogy here.

It's not an issue of anachronisms, because D&D has entirely different cultural/physical assumptions than the real world so something can't really be "anachronistic" in the same way. Regarding permissive gender roles in particular, those make more sense for the setting than Medieval ones would, because when you have gods and goddesses of equal power promoting multiple different sets of teachings on those, women who can contribute to war as easily and well as men via magic, healing magic to improve life expectancy and general standards of living, and so forth, there's no reason that the very specifically Medieval conceptions on pretty much anything socioreligious would ever take hold in the first place.

But the specific issue I was referring to was the one where various writers forget that they're writing for a polytheistic setting and insert monotheistic themes where they don't belong, primarily the thing where they portray Evil as fallen from Good rather than all of the alignments being co-equal primordial forces. Things like 3e casting Asmodeus as a fallen angel in a blatant riff on Paradise Lost, when 2e had Ahriman as a peer of Jazirian and when Law and Chaos were around long before Good and Evil, or several sources portraying the Evil afterlives as being designed as punishment for Evil people for whatever reason when they were in fact designed by Evil gods for Evil people to be (what they viewed as) ideal realms. There are other things as well, like poor writers defaulting to portraying LG churches as Medieval Catholic Church expies, but that's the main issue.

Its kind of lost in the morass of the FR publication history, but i believe Ao is the one who made the stand on the wall, specifically. The other gods just wanted Kelemvor to stop playing favorites because it was causing problems for them.

I don't remember Ao opining on the issue at all. As I recall (I don't have my Avatar Trilogy novels handy), Kelemvor and Mystra were put on trial by the other gods for essentially applying mortal morality to their godly duties and favoring certain people over others and he realized on his own that by providing a cushy afterlife for Good folks he was actually weakening the Good gods because a lot of heroic types were throwing their lives away with the certainty that they'd get a nice afterlife, and that's what persuaded him to stop rewarding the Good Faithless and False and punishing the Evil ones and go back to being impartial. As hamishspence noted, there was no mention of Ao during that portion of the trial and no mandate that he reestablish the Wall, just that he return the City of the Dead to its prior state.

P.S Would you consider refusing to worship gods in other Great Wheel settings also "passively harmful" or there is a specific reason why it is harmful in Faerun?
As for other settings, it depends. In Dragonlance, it was the status quo for a couple hundred years after the cataclysm, but it led to the formation of a bunch of largely malicious cults that largely took advantage of desperate people, promising divine clerical powers without having any so they could take peoples wealth and resources. In Eberron, i dont think the gods even provably exist, and certainly dont act directly on the world or even their followers. There, it wouldnt hurt anything, but i cant really imagine why you would want to live like that either, since at least by worshiping you theoretically believe something better will eventually come your way.

Worshiping or not is basically a personal decision in any setting where worshiping the local sun god or fertility goddess isn't directly linked to whether the sun comes up tomorrow or the harvest comes in successfully; FR is a relatively unique case there as far as D&D settings go. On Krynn it wasn't a refusal to worship the gods that led to evil cults popping up, but rather the fact that Takhisis was cheating and providing clerical power when the gods were supposed to be staying away from the world. On Eberron there's no issue with not worshiping any gods because there are several non-deistic religions like the Undying Court, the Blood of Vol, and the Path of Light that one can worship if one still wants to worship something but isn't a fan of the Host or the Flame.

In either case, whether Joe Commoner worships or not (and what he worships) has no impact on Bob Commoner, because not enough people worshiping Solinari or Dol Arrah doesn't have a chance of making the moon or sun fall out of the sky like Torillians not worshiping Selûne or Lathander does post-Avatar Crisis.

LibraryOgre

2020-11-03, 01:58 PM

GrayDeath

2020-11-03, 02:06 PM

For that, my favourite Headcanon is from the Fanfic "The Open Door" https://www.fanfiction.net/s/4320933/1/The-Open-Door

Ao is actually a medium/low Level Clerc of the Gods that created most of the Universe.
He simply has admin access in the PPocket that is the Realms, and has been kicking back and relaxing since noone of his former Superiors knows there he actually went. ^^

Fits his actions and reactions to a T and is funny, cause the fic makes the original Gods those of Oh My Goddess, for additional Realm Bashing read it. I laughes the whole ca. 15 chapters dealing with them.^^

PairO'Dice Lost

2020-11-03, 02:20 PM

I'm now kind of wondering about the origin of AO in the Realms. Was he included in Greenwood's ideas, or was he a later insertion from the TSR editorial, who was worried about the anti-D&D propaganda (especially since, at the end of the Avatar Trilogy, AO himself bows to someone else, who is never mentioned again)?

As per this page (http://forum.candlekeep.com/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=14621&whichpage=5):

A) how did Ed deal with the death of nearly all of the gods?

In the home Realms campaign, none of this has happened yet. We’re still in the initial wild-rumors phases of the about-to-unfold Time of Troubles.

[...]

E) Ao was never mentioned in Ed's original work, but what happened to Ao's mandate of the Balance, and presuming he's still alive, wouldn't he intercede to at minimum restore the Weave?

One would certainly expect Ao to intercede, wouldn’t one? So perhaps something’s happened to him. Perhaps the Balance itself has been swept away. The point to be made (or rather, reiterated) here is that we just don’t know. Anything we say is speculation, and Ed is bound by “don’t tell” legal fetters (those oft-mentioned NDAs) anyway.

Emphasis mine.

For that, my favourite Headcanon is from the Fanfic "The Open Door" https://www.fanfiction.net/s/4320933/1/The-Open-Door

Ao is actually a medium/low Level Clerc of the Gods that created most of the Universe.
He simply has admin access in the PPocket that is the Realms, and has been kicking back and relaxing since noone of his former Superiors knows there he actually went. ^^

Fits his actions and reactions to a T and is funny, cause the fic makes the original Gods those of Oh My Goddess, for additional Realm Bashing read it. I laughes the whole ca. 15 chapters dealing with them.^^

My take on it, based on some lore inconsistencies in the Avatar Trilogy, is that he's a god of divinity itself pulling one over on the other gods. Spoilered for space:

Another headcanon of mine is that "overgods" aren't a distinct category of being at all, they're just normal deities pulling a fast one on the rest of the gods.

So, gods gain power based on the prominence of their portfolio, amount and strength of prayer, number of lay worshipers and clergy, and similar factors, modulo a given Prime's mechanics of godhood, right? Well, if you can have Lathander as the god of the sun, Bane as the god of tyranny, and so forth, there's no reason you couldn't have Ao the god of divinity. And just like Bane can see and hear around subjects of tyranny and acts of tyranny, know the future of tyrannical acts and organizations, use tyranny-related magic and grant or deny power to those who draw on the concept of Tyranny, manipulate the bodies and minds of mortals within his sphere of influence, and so forth, Ao would be able to see and hear around the gods, know what the gods are up to, grant or deny deific powers, control the gods' bodies and minds, and so forth, and just as Lathander could control the sun itself and alter its properties, Ao could grant or strip divinity to and from the gods and change the way worship and goodhood work. This would make him appear to be effectively omnipotent and omniscient to the gods in the same way that Mystra appears effectively omniscient and omnipotent to a mortal wizard.

Evidence for this:

1) New gods can come into existence (and existing gods can be changed) when mortal belief in a given concept is strong enough. No one knew about Ao until the Time of Troubles (and the gods didn't appear to know about him for much longer before that), and crediting him as the creator of Realmspace contradicts what sages know of the Selûne/Shar creation myth, so sure, he might have been a hands-off overgod for years until he felt forced to step in in a way he never did before or since...or perhaps growing mortal dissatisfaction with the gods caused Ao to coalesce around the portfolio of regulating divinity (with "worship, godhood, gods, and divine magic" as his portfolio and Cynosure as his divine realm), use his power over the gods to make them believe he'd always been around, use his power over godhood and worship to cause himself to draw power from gods instead of mortals, use his suddenly-massive reserves of divine power to retroactively block the greater gods' future sight of his ascension and actions, and use the Time of Troubles to show off and solidify his control over his portfolio in the same way a new god might appear to his worshipers and do some miracle-working and/or smiting to show them he's in charge.

2) During the Avatar Crisis, Cyric appeared to gain enough power to be able to challenge Ao when no other god was, and Ao appeared to be concerned or even afraid of this. Completely unreasonable if Ao is actually an overgod who's all-powerful within Toril...but much more reasonable if he's just a god trying to pull one over on the gods exactly like Cyric was doing with his Cyric-is-the-one-true-god maneuver with the Cyrinishad, and Ao's portfolio of "the gods" ran head-first into Cyric's new portfolio of "monotheism" and he couldn't exert nearly as much power over Cyric for that reason.

The scene where Cyric challenges Ao in Cynosure, Ao is surprised, and he has to actually try to shut Cyric down certainly reads to me like Ao trying and failing to overpower Cyric's divine powers, then realizing that, hey, Cynosure is his divine realm, he has home ground advantage, and cheats to squeak out a win that way, and then as soon as Cyric really believes that Ao actually does have power over him, well, belief begets reality and Ao is in control again.

3) The High God of Krynn pulls basically the same stunt Ao does. The gods are squabbling and ignoring the mortals, the High God steps in and lays down the law in a way that implies that he can't just wave his hand and change things while claiming to be "as high above the gods as the gods are above mortals," and then once he's made his big debut he steps back and pretends to run things from behind the scenes.

Willie the Duck

2020-11-03, 02:38 PM

Clistenes

2020-11-06, 06:30 PM

The thing one has to remember is that the Great Wheel is not like various real-world religions where good people are meant to be rewarded and evil people are meant to be punished. People who are Good are judged by Good gods, and are rewarded if they were sufficiently Good and faithful and punished otherwise; people who are Evil are judged by Evil gods, and are rewarded if they were sufficiently Evil and faithful and punished otherwise.

Bob the LG commoner who primarily worships Heironeous but doesn't go out of his way to help people and Joe the CE commoner who primarily worships Erythnul but doesn't go out of his way to kill people are both likely going to end up on the bottom rung of the afterlife ladder subject to the lowest servants of their respective gods, with their memories gone and no particular perks of note, because they were underwhelming worshipers in life. Sir Bob the Hospitaler who primarily worships Kord and dedicates his life to crusading against evil and Dark Lord Joe the Necromancer who primarily worships Hextor and dedicates his life to crushing kingdoms under the heels of his skeletal army are both likely going to end up "skipping the line" to end up as a higher-ranking eladrin or devil and having a favored position in the afterlife, retaining their memories and a good chunk of their powers in life, because they were devoted to their gods' cause and significantly advanced said cause.

While the Lower Planes are pretty harsh afterlives for those who get the short end of the stick, and would definitely be considered punishment for a non-Evil soul that got sent there, an Evil soul getting sent to an Evil plane is in large part a reward for them, not a punishment. An Evil person is likely to view getting "redeemed to Good" much like a Good person is likely to view "falling to Evil" for two reasons, first because they've proven themselves disloyal and/or wishy-washy to their patron and not only lose out on the rewards of their original patron but are unlikely to be rewarded as well by their new patron, and second because the promise of a given Good afterlife isn't likely to appeal to them at all compared to the Evil one, e.g. to an LE person who wants to work their way up the Baatorian hierarchy and lord it over people for eternity, spending eternity in Arcadia where you have to (ugh) cooperate with people and be nice to your neighbors and stuff sounds like torture.

I would like to point that while powerful evil people, the supervillains of the setting will get cushy positions as proxies to their evil patrons, Joe the CE commoner will probably have it worse than Bob the LG commoner when they both die... both will be underdogs, but every single superior to Joe will be an evil psycho who is encouraged to be an evil psycho... Being tortured and abused and forced to serve is worse than having to cooperate and work with others, I think.

That said, maybe Joe is either stupid or arrogant enough to believe he will be boss after death, like those schoolboys from "In Which the Dead Return; and Charles Rowland Concludes His Education" of Neil Gaiman, who thought they would have lots of fun in Hell if they worshiped Satan, only to discover that yeah, high ranking demons have it good, but they were still lowly scum...

Also, while evil people who have a powerful patron can expect preferential treatment, evil people who die and go to their assigned Evil Plane rather than to an evil god's realm almost always end as a larva and even the few who avoid being devoured can expect years or centuries of horrific suffering before climbing to fiendhood...

Keltest

2020-11-06, 10:16 PM

PairO'Dice Lost

2020-11-06, 11:41 PM

I would like to point that while powerful evil people, the supervillains of the setting will get cushy positions as proxies to their evil patrons, Joe the CE commoner will probably have it worse than Bob the LG commoner when they both die... both will be underdogs, but every single superior to Bob will be an evil psycho who is encouraged to be an evil psycho... Being tortured and abused and forced to serve is worse than having to cooperate and work with others, I think.

Well, yeah, you think so and I think so, but neither of us is a worshiper of an Evil god on Toril or any other D&D world. (For one thing, I don't think the Weave supports WiFi, so posting from there could be an issue. :smallwink:)

If a person chooses, say, Cas (spite), Erythnul (slaughter), Hiddukel (treachery), Morgion (envy), Bane (tyranny), or Beshaba (misfortune) as a patron deity, that says a lot about their worldview, doesn't it? Someone who can look at the half a bajillion deities of the Torillian pantheons and say that the god who they resonate with the most is Bane, of all gods, is someone whose view of the world is that tyranny is the natural and/or best state of things, that it is right to treat one's underlings however one wishes, that it's worth giving up physical and social freedom in exchange for the benefits of knowing one's place in a strict hierarchy, and so on. And while one usually associates that sort of attitude with Lady Alicia the Antipaladin, Chosen of Bane, Tyrant of Three Kingdoms, General of the Legions of Doom, Destroyer of Hope, Et Cetera, because she's on top of the heap and those views obviously justify and reinforce her position of supreme power, that's the same kind of attitude one might see in Alice the Commoner, mediocre merchant, petty tyrant of the corner apothecary, least-favorite aunt, ruiner of family reunions, et cetera, even if by nearly all measures she's at or near the bottom of the heap and it doesn't make much sense to us for her to support that sort of system.

If you or I end up in Bane's realm, that would be awful torture, but for Alice, who thinks that getting tormented by those above her and having to fight and scrape to carve out her own little dominion to survive is already the normal state of affairs? Well, by Bane, you've just put her in a copy of the real world where she doesn't have to worry about food or sleep and gets rewarded by the local representatives of Bane for her efforts to stage a hostile takeover of the next neighborhood over and subjugate the residents to her will instead of getting punished by the local representatives of Torm for failing to respect her neighbor's right to property--sounds like her version of paradise! And if you plopped Alice down in Celestia, where everyone is so nice and sickeningly sweet and it's just gotta be a trick somehow because even angels must expect something in return for their favors, where the newer petitioners don't listen to her orders because they don't believe in seniority and think everyone is equal (as if!), well, an eternity of that would drive her nuts!

So yeah, for most humans ending up in the Lower Planes is a terrible thing, but most humans are TN and would pick Neutral or Good patron gods for a more pleasant life and better afterlife; for the people who actually would end up Down There because they're Evil and/or picked Evil patrons, it would be a good fit.

I would suggest that Joe the CE commoner would not be sufficiently schooled in theology or the planes to understand that being evil is bad for the long term state of his soul. As a commoner, he's probably just bitter about something and willing to act on it if he thinks he can get away with it.

People say that sort of thing a lot about inhabitants of Toril, but really, when you're in a world where clerics are performing minor miracles on every street corner, anyone who can scrape together 950 gp (impossible for a peasant without years of saving, but a reasonable expenditure for a merchant or other professional) can pay a priest to phone up their patron to answer a few questions, and the high priests of every religion can personally attest to having popped in to their eventual afterlife for tea via plane shift and tell people all about what awaits them, the idea that the whole afterlife setup would be an obscure point of theology rather than a common bit of trivia doesn't make much sense.

Remember, during the Avatar Trilogy, when Kelemvor took the Wall of the Faithless down it was a matter of weeks if not days at most before people all over Faerûn knew about what happened and were starting to change the way they lived (or ended) their lives accordingly. One assumes that when Kelemvor's church said "There's been a change of management in the Fugue Plain, here's the deets" then the the other churches would confirm that yes there's been a change of death god and yes the Wall is gone and yes he's going to be doing some judging of souls on his own, so word would spread pretty quickly. Sure, some gods could direct their churches to lie about it to avoid losing worshipers, and the high priests of a few faiths could theoretically get together and try to suppress or twist the news, but there are enough churches out there and enough independent sources of knowledge (called outsiders, wizards with contact other plane, churches whose priests couldn't or wouldn't lie about it, etc.) that that would be a major PR hit for the gods and churches who lied if the truth ever came out and that wouldn't at all be worth the resulting loss in worship.

Millstone85

2020-11-07, 05:05 AM

But the specific issue I was referring to was the one where various writers forget that they're writing for a polytheistic setting and insert monotheistic themes where they don't belong, primarily the thing where they portray Evil as fallen from Good rather than all of the alignments being co-equal primordial forces. Things like 3e casting Asmodeus as a fallen angel in a blatant riff on Paradise Lost, when 2e had Ahriman as a peer of JazirianIn my opinion, fallen celestials have their place in the Great Wheel, as do risen fiends.

That Zariel the angel-turned-devil, Archduchess of Avernus, would get more attention than Felthis the yugoloth-turned-guardinal, Philosopher King of Ecstasy, might be a problem of monotheistic themes, but maybe more so of adventures taking place in the Lower Planes much more often than they do in the Upper Planes.

It also happens to be my headcanon that Asmodeus is simultaneously a fallen angel and Ahriman's puppet show.

crediting him as the creator of Realmspace contradicts what sages know of the Selûne/Shar creation mythI am not usually a militant feminist, but I got to roll my eyes at this. Sure, let's replace the goddesses with a being whose typical avatar is a beard in the sky. :smallyuk:

when Kelemvor took the Wall of the Faithless down it was a matter of weeks if not days at most before people all over Faerûn knew about what happened and were starting to change the way they lived (or ended) their lives accordingly.On that note, I haven't read the book, but I find this excerpt infuriating:
"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."
I suppose it is another of Ao's meddlings that Zale here can not qualify as a Kelemvorite without the flattery and offerings, or without making his career as a mortician or Van Helsing.

Anymage

2020-11-07, 06:51 AM

I suppose it is another of Ao's meddlings that Zale here can not qualify as a Kelemvorite without the flattery and offerings, or without making his career as a mortician or Van Helsing.

I've said before that the mass defection from worship is silly and heavy handed when clued in people also know that their prayers are necessary to keep the gods running. But lack-of-worship as a way of worship does seem more than a little silly (see Hilgya's worship of Loki as an end-run around the honor rule, which only works because this is a comedic comic), and I'm not going to be too upset about a world where one can't just up and change/declare their patron deity postmortem.

I would suggest that Joe the CE commoner would not be sufficiently schooled in theology or the planes to understand that being evil is bad for the long term state of his soul. As a commoner, he's probably just bitter about something and willing to act on it if he thinks he can get away with it.

Just being evil? I could easily see someone not being aware the exact disposition of their soul. People are good at self-deception.

Active worship of an evil god? If you worship the god of slavery and kicking puppies, it's kind of hard to argue that you're the paragon of CG. Whether or not you wind up enjoying your afterlife when you're the low man on the totem pole, you aren't going to be surprised when you get there.

Vahnavoi

2020-11-07, 11:11 AM

I would suggest that Joe the CE commoner would not be sufficiently schooled in theology or the planes to understand that being evil is bad for the long term state of his soul. As a commoner, he's probably just bitter about something and willing to act on it if he thinks he can get away with it.

Yes and no.

Let's start with the "no" part. Given what kind of ideas spread and become relevant in real populations, Joe the Commoner would have heard about the planes and the gods and could recite a book's worth of mythology and stories about them.

But on the "yes" part... they probably would have limited empirical experience of these things and their understanding of them would be filtered through a lens of spite and anarchy.

For some obvious real life comparisons: most people have heard of evolution. And most of them can see. Quite a lot of them cannot tell you how and why they can see in in context of evolution, because they never personally put effort into studying the evidence or understanding the theory. Any explanation they could give you would likely be hilariously wrong and warped by popular misconceptions, and would quickly end in an appeal to authority ("I don't know, but my teacher said it's so, and I trust them, so it must be true") . You could fast-talk some of them to questioning evolution in its entirety, just by appearing more well-read and authoritative than the person they got their original knowledge from.

The fact that there's an entire chain of education churning out expert after expert who, among themselves, have near unanimous consensus about key details of how sight evolved, demonstrably doesn't stop this from happening.

Chauncymancer

2020-11-07, 06:17 PM

Just being evil? I could easily see someone not being aware the exact disposition of their soul. People are good at self-deception.

Active worship of an evil god? If you worship the god of slavery and kicking puppies, it's kind of hard to argue that you're the paragon of CG. Whether or not you wind up enjoying your afterlife when you're the low man on the totem pole, you aren't going to be surprised when you get there.

My personal theory about Evil is that a person has an Evil alignment IF and ONLY IF you tell them about going to [Baator/Hades/The Abyss] and their eyes light up with glee: They just can't wait to go and see it for themselves!

PairO'Dice Lost

2020-11-07, 06:54 PM

In my opinion, fallen celestials have their place in the Great Wheel, as do risen fiends.

That Zariel the angel-turned-devil, Archduchess of Avernus, would get more attention than Felthis the yugoloth-turned-guardinal, Philosopher King of Ecstasy, might be a problem of monotheistic themes, but maybe more so of adventures taking place in the Lower Planes much more often than they do in the Upper Planes.

Oh, they both certainly have their place, as do sane slaad and rogue modrons and other inverted exemplars, and Fall-from-Grace in Planescape: Torment is an iconic example of a risen fiend. My issue is when the devs blindly recapitulate monotheistic themes in place of something more original and better-fitting for the setting. Zariel being a warlike celestial who already hated demons more than was proper for a being of pure Good and who "fell" to Evil almost voluntarily so she could more effectively kick demon ass and take demon names? Awesome and badass. Asmodeus getting retconned from something original into a blatant Lucifer expy? Boring and cliché.

It also happens to be my headcanon that Asmodeus is simultaneously a fallen angel and Ahriman's puppet show.

The multiple-choice backstory does provide some fun opportunities, yeah. I think it was Afroakuma in one of his Planescape threads who said "Every concrete statement on Asmodeus's lore and backstory is almost certainly a lie. Including this one." :smallamused:

I am not usually a militant feminist, but I got to roll my eyes at this. Sure, let's replace the goddesses with a being whose typical avatar is a beard in the sky. :smallyuk:

The most annoying part of that whole thing was that Mystra was already basically the overdoddess keeping the other gods in line.

Strongest deity in Realmspace? Check: She was created out of the majority of the power of the two creator goddesses, and she was still in the top 5 strongest gods in the sphere even after investing the majority of her power in mortal servants.

Able to enforce a set of godly laws onto the other deities? Check: Realmspace is so saturated with magic that the laws of physics and magic and godhood are all basically the same thing, and she could deny other gods access to the Weave at will.

Treated as an overgoddess? Check: Players already viewed her as one of the (if not the) most important deities in Realmspace due to all the focus she and her Chosen got in the novels, and Ed Greenwood had originally intended Mystra (or Lurue, the Goddess of Magic's pre-TSR-meddling incarnation) to be the most important goddess in the setting.

If the Avatar Crisis had basically been Mystra going "Okay, the rest of you gods are slacking on the job so I'm going to retrieve most of my power and kick your divine butts until you take this seriously" instead of it being "Hi, I'm Ao, a retconned-in overdeity who's going to get Mystra killed again and replace her with a whiny mortal angsting her way through two whole novels before returning her to the status quo," I think post-Crisis Realmslore would have been in a much better place.

On that note, I haven't read the book, but I find this excerpt infuriating:
I suppose it is another of Ao's meddlings that Zale here can not qualify as a Kelemvorite without the flattery and offerings, or without making his career as a mortician or Van Helsing.

Pretty sure you're misreading that: "[I] trust your justice before any god who demands flattery and offerings" is saying that he trusts that Kelemvor's justice would give him a fair shot at a reward, instead of other gods who reward whoever flatters and sacrifices to them the most. Right before that quote, he said:

"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."

It's not that he's Faithless because he doesn't bow and scrape before the gods (Kelemvor doesn't go in for all that pageantry so he could avoid that simply by being a Kelemvorite), it's that he's refusing to pick a patron and is just trusting that being good in general is enough for a reward.

Palanan

2020-11-08, 09:10 AM

Originally Posted by Jason
The game is written by modern people, you know. The modern attitudes towards gender roles in all versions of D&D are perhaps the most obvious anachronisms, but modern morality probably runs a close second.

Can you explain your uses of "modern" in this context?

Jason

2020-11-08, 01:42 PM

Can you explain your uses of "modern" in this context?
All of them? Okay.

The game is written by modern people, you know."Modern" here means "people who started writing games and fiction in the 1970s or later.

The modern attitudes towards gender roles in all versions of D&D are perhaps the most obvious anachronisms,D&D has never had any restrictions based on gender roles as to what character class a particular gender can play. That is a very modern idea, because there are round about zero real or fictional medieval renaissance female adventurers before the '60s, certainly very few mortal women who could fight with a sword as well as a man. There were a few powerful noblewomen or enchantresses, but that's about it. Tolkien has Eowyn, but she is seen as exceptional (Luthien and Galadriel are of the "immortal enchantress" type).
D&D has always treated the existence of female warriors, priests, etc. as unremarkable.

but modern morality probably runs a close second.An obvious starting point would be slavery and torture being viewed as evil in D&D, when they were commonplace and unmarked upon in real medieval society. The stocks, public executions being seen as an acceptable form of entertainment, bear baitings, public bath houses, and debtors prison would also be common features of medieval life that have rarely if ever appeared in D&D.

NigelWalmsley

2020-11-08, 02:52 PM

D&D has never had any restrictions based on gender roles as to what character class a particular gender can play.

This is not, technically, correct. The Beloved of Valarian is a PrC from the 3e Book of Exalted Deeds that is available only to women. I believe there are other gendered things scattered around in various sources. That said, these things are pretty rare, so your claim is broadly accurate.

LibraryOgre

2020-11-08, 04:59 PM

D&D has never had any restrictions based on gender roles as to what character class a particular gender can play. That is a very modern idea, because there are round about zero real or fictional medieval renaissance female adventurers before the '60s, certainly very few mortal women who could fight with a sword as well as a man. There were a few powerful noblewomen or enchantresses, but that's about it. Tolkien has Eowyn, but she is seen as exceptional (Luthien and Galadriel are of the "immortal enchantress" type).
D&D has always treated the existence of female warriors, priests, etc. as unremarkable.

AD&D 1e made the maximum strength for women something like 3-5 lower than men, across races. While women could be fighters, 1e made them decidedly worse. And a lot of the earlier material did not have women warriors... they did a lot of women priests and some women wizards, but women warriors like Tika, Laurana, and Kitiara were presented as being exceptions... whereas Goldmoon was a shaman and healer. Outside of the Forgotten Realms (Ed was terribly progressive for the times), you don't see a ton of women warriors in early worlds like Dragonlance and Greyhawk. There are Heroes, but seldom ranker soldiers. This goes back to the source material... while people like to point to Tolkien, the early D&D players were far more influenced by Leiber and Howard of dungeon-delving rapscallions, rather than world-changing adventures.

While AD&D, and later D&D editions, were made by "modern people", it's important to remember that they were made by people, over the course of almost 50 years. During that time, attitudes have changed, science has advanced, and cultural interests have changed. I like to mention that D&D isn't really a medieval fantasy... it is a Western with medieval trappings. And the types of stories we've seen in Westerns have changed, from the old ones where Indians were universally evil (or rare exceptions, like Tonto) and nationality was personality, to later ones where with more nuanced portrayals of race, ethnicity, and women.

Palanan

2020-11-08, 05:31 PM

Originally Posted by NigelWalmsley
The Beloved of Valarian is a PrC from the 3e Book of Exalted Deeds that is available only to women.

Along with the Swanmay, a few pages later. Another that’s rarely mentioned is the Battle Maiden from Oriental Adventures; and then there’s the highly exclusive Sword Dancer from Faiths and Pantheons, restricted to female elves and half-elves.

Faiths and Pantheons also has the Arachne, with a drow-spidery theme; and other FR sourcebooks have the Hathran, Yathrinshee, etc. The Realms seem to have the lion’s share of the female-exclusive PrCs.

Millstone85

2020-11-08, 06:23 PM

Pretty sure you're misreading that: "[I] trust your justice before any god who demands flattery and offerings" is saying that he trusts that Kelemvor's justice would give him a fair shot at a reward, instead of other gods who reward whoever flatters and sacrifices to them the most.Yes? How did you think I was reading it?

It's not that he's Faithless because he doesn't bow and scrape before the gods (Kelemvor doesn't go in for all that pageantry so he could avoid that simply by being a Kelemvorite), it's that he's refusing to pick a patron and is just trusting that being good in general is enough for a reward.But how is this man, who holds such trust in Kelemvor's judgment of his soul, and subsequent reward on the cosy side of the Fugue Plane, that he no longer fears death, not considered to be a hardcore Kelemvorite?

That's why I am envisioning some absurd Ao-made check list. To qualify as a follower of the deity with the Judge-of-the-Dead portfolio, a mortal must satisfies this and that.

I'm not going to be too upset about a world where one can't just up and change/declare their patron deity postmortem.I didn't take it as a postmortem conversion. Not when the scene seems to be about the mindset that led this man to his death, in the wake of Kelemvor's changes to the Fugue Plane.

PairO'Dice Lost

2020-11-09, 12:38 AM

The stocks, public executions being seen as an acceptable form of entertainment, bear baitings, public bath houses, and debtors prison would also be common features of medieval life that have rarely if ever appeared in D&D.

This doesn't necessarily say much about the setting of D&D so much as it does the kinds of material published settings and adventures focus on, because the needs of adventure modules and setting splatbooks are focused on the player experience when describing the world.

Public executions and bear baiting kinda fit with the "PCs are sentenced to fight as gladiators for the public's/ruler's amusement" trope, especially in Dark Sun, because if someone's fighting for their life on-screen it makes more sense for it to involve the PCs than to have them just be spactators. Public bath houses haven't featured in any adventures most likely because the moral crackdown in the 2e era made designers leery of including anything "scandalous" in a published product (see: Ed Greenwood having to rename brothels as "festhalls" on FR maps to get them past the censors). Stocks and prisons and such are unlikely to show up as scenery because the PCs are either unlikely to care about the trials and tribulations of background commoners or are going to derail the adventure to help them out, and they're unlikely to happen to the PCs because "you're all arrested and thrown in jail" reeks of a railroady DM so published adventures rarely (but not never) include that sort of thing.

It's entirely possible that those sorts of things would fit into a given setting (probably not any of the big published ones, except again Dark Sun or perhaps Ravenloft, but definitely a homebrew setting in the "generic D&D setting" range), they just don't get much attention for the same reason you rarely see bathrooms marked on maps or know anything more about the legal system in a given town than "Look, the magistrate is a cultist!" or "Look, the baron's a vampire!"

I like to mention that D&D isn't really a medieval fantasy... it is a Western with medieval trappings. And the types of stories we've seen in Westerns have changed, from the old ones where Indians were universally evil (or rare exceptions, like Tonto) and nationality was personality, to later ones where with more nuanced portrayals of race, ethnicity, and women.

I'd phrase it rather that D&D can be done as a full-on Western in Medieval clothing, but by default it's sorta one part post-apocalypse (a sense of longing for an earlier Golden Age, lots of ancient ruins, schizo tech and magic (https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/SchizoTech), etc.) plus one part Western (scattered settlements, distinct "borderlands" vs. "wilderness" division, adventurers as frontier justice, etc.) plus one part late Iron Age myth ("heroes" are deemed such for power rather than morality, anywhere too far outside of civilization is scary and full of monsters, mortals are subject to lots of divine meddling, etc.), mixed with a pseudo-Medieval aesthetic and social roles and overlaid with pseudo-Renaissance technology and social mores. D&D doesn't really fit into any single genre or time period box, whether that's Medieval fantasy or Western, which is why most attempts to do "Medieval Europe, but D&D" or "Ancient Greece, but D&D" and so forth don't really work without overhauling a lot of the mechanics and flavor.

Yes? How did you think I was reading it?

It looked like you were reading it as Zale being a devout Kelemvorite and simply not being counted as one on a technicality because he didn't go through the motions, when it was more about his belief (or lack thereof) than his actions.

But how is this man, who holds such trust in Kelemvor's judgment of his soul, and subsequent reward on the cosy side of the Fugue Plane, that he no longer fears death, not considered to be a hardcore Kelemvorite?

That's why I am envisioning some absurd Ao-made check list. To qualify as a follower of the deity with the Judge-of-the-Dead portfolio, a mortal must satisfies this and that.

If you discovered right now, with 100% certainty, that the afterlife exists and is run by Hades (the actual mythological version, not Disney's scheming sleazeball Hades or other re- or misinterpretations), you might say "Huh, that Hades guy from mythology is pretty chill, not a jerk like Zeus or Poseidon or the rest of them. I bet when everyone dies and goes to get judged they get a pretty fair shake." But if you then continued to go about your life as normal without praying to him or reading up on his myths or trying to align yourself with the values he represents because you figure Hades is a cool guy and would totally understand, you wouldn't expect to be considered a devout Hadean if that came up during your afterlife judgment, would you?

That's basically the situation Zale is in. He didn't say "Someone who trusts in Kelemvor's judgment is sure to receive reward in death," or anything indicating he was paying any mind to Kelemvor personally, he said "A brave man in life is sure to receive reward in death," which is sort of an "I'll do whatever I think is praiseworthy and I bet Kelemvor will have my back" sort of stance--a stance, mind you, that would fit Torm or Tempus or other "patron of righteous warriors who love fighting evil" gods much better than Kelemvor. By sort of splitting things down the middle and neither going all-in on trusting Kelemvor nor trusting to Torm/Tyr/whoever and not needing to rely on Kelemvor being a nice guy at all, he ends up Faithless.

Millstone85

2020-11-09, 09:08 AM

It looked like you were reading it as Zale being a devout Kelemvorite and simply not being counted as one on a technicality because he didn't go through the motions, when it was more about his belief (or lack thereof) than his actions.Yes, that too.

But if you then continued to go about your life as normal without praying to him or reading up on his myths or trying to align yourself with the values he represents because you figure Hades is a cool guy and would totally understand, you wouldn't expect to be considered a devout Hadean if that came up during your afterlife judgment, would you?If it were Hades' own policy to reward or punish souls based on their moral deeds, rather than on whether they can recite his or any other god's gospel, and I embraced that decision, then yes, I would make the case that I was Hadean. Maybe not a devout one, unless my faith motivated a heroic sacrifice like that of Zale here.

I guess I just can't figure out how patron gods are supposed to work in the Realms. It could be that Zale didn't have that elusive personal relationship with a god. Or maybe it was all about pledges and rituals as a sort of divine covenant (likely codified by Ao) which Zale refused to sign.

Keltest

2020-11-09, 09:37 AM

Yes, that too.

If it were Hades' own policy to reward or punish souls based on their moral deeds, rather than on whether they can recite his or any other god's gospel, and I embraced that decision, then yes, I would make the case that I was Hadean. Maybe not a devout one, unless my faith motivated a heroic sacrifice like that of Zale here.

I guess I just can't figure out how patron gods are supposed to work in the Realms. It could be that Zale didn't have that elusive personal relationship with a god. Or maybe it was all about pledges and rituals as a sort of divine covenant (likely codified by Ao) which Zale refused to sign.

I think the distinction here is that Kelemvor's job as judge of the dead isnt something that mortals follow while alive. Its just his job. His actual dogma for mortals involves comforting people at time of death, making death in general less of a terrifying unknown and more of "the next great adventure" so to speak, and opposing the undead in all their forms. Zale didnt do any of that, but he apparently also didnt give any stock to any of the actual "live gloriously until you stop" gods because he figured that Kelemvor would do right by him anyway.

LibraryOgre

2020-11-09, 09:43 AM

Quertus

2020-11-09, 09:48 AM

No one in the Abyss gets used as fuel for an infernal device, that's Baator. :smallwink:

But you're right. The pull of Outer Planes on souls is often described in D&D novels as a sort of "spiritual gravity" drawing them to where the best belong. It's not a deliberate choice, it's a natural attraction.

So, I've been pondering this one.

One of the reasons for my hatred of the wall is that there is absolutely no reason for it, as, as you said, souls naturally are drawn to the destination matching their alignment (which, of course, I *also* hate, as alignment is dumb inconsistent pigeonholes).

However, supposing you were to take that "natural physics of the universe" background, and attempt to superimpose a "gods take souls to their individual divine realms" motif instead of a general "souls to go a plane" physics.

OK, sure, you might still have a few unclaimed souls. What do you do with them?

Well, why not just let them go to the plane that is drawing them? Wouldn't that be better than creating the "wall of atheism"?

We’ve got everyone’s least favorite Omelas to consider.

Least favorite? :smallconfused:

I want to reiterate that I at the same time do not consider the Wall a big hangup for roleplay, but as far as moral navel-gazing goes I consider it cruel and either pointless (if it's removal would not change the setting significantly - it seems that that is at lest somewhat close enough to your position) or unfair (if gods get noticeable portion of current worshipers because of the Wall's threat).

That pretty well sums up my position as well.

For that, my favourite Headcanon is from the Fanfic "The Open Door" https://www.fanfiction.net/s/4320933/1/The-Open-Door

Ao is actually a medium/low Level Clerc of the Gods that created most of the Universe.
He simply has admin access in the PPocket that is the Realms, and has been kicking back and relaxing since noone of his former Superiors knows there he actually went. ^^

Fits his actions and reactions to a T and is funny, cause the fic makes the original Gods those of Oh My Goddess, for additional Realm Bashing read it. I laughes the whole ca. 15 chapters dealing with them.^^

An interesting read, I had a few laughs. Pity it so abruptly ended.

My take on it, based on some lore inconsistencies in the Avatar Trilogy, is that he's a god of divinity itself pulling one over on the other gods. Spoilered for space:

That... makes a surprising amount of sense.

Keltest

2020-11-09, 09:49 AM

GrayDeath

2020-11-09, 12:02 PM

An interesting read, I had a few laughs. Pity it so abruptly ended.

.

Indeed, I still bemoan it.

It seems the author caught a lot of flak in forums for "making his theoretically kinda Good Chaos Guys" only fight the other Settings GOOD guys, and it made him do a terrible rewrite.

Sadly he seemed to be unable or willing to return to the original.

And while I can see a lot of bashing there, most of it was pretty much "how I would ahve done it were I Chaos and kinda invading", so ^^

But BTT:

Since the actual bad, everyone agrees, wall only makes ANY form of sense in 3rd Edition, why not simply ignore its existence later on, or reqrite it to the Wall of Mirrors or similar?
As its rather obvious its return wasnt part of a great new planar concept, but msotly laziness/bad research? ^^

Anymage

2020-11-09, 01:13 PM

A side thought: What should Kelemvor do with the souls of the dead who no one claims? Just leave them to wander until they're snatched up by fiends? A work study program? Reincarnation if no one claims them in a certain amount of time? Claiming them himself if they're unclaimed?

"These guys are definitely mine, but if no one picks up Bob in the next 10 years, he's mine, too."

If I've read things right, the false are already the dead that nobody else would claim. Offering the faithless a similar chance at a meh afterlife in Kelemvor's realm with at most the wall of mirrors against them doesn't feel like as an over-the-top punishment.

Militant athar-level faithless would be free to decide that gods suck so much that they don't even want to spend time in a godly realm. At which point they're told that the alternative is to wander the fugue plane until they either fade away or fall victim to fiends in one way or another. They're allowed entry, but not forced to stay. Occasionally a small band of faithless might meet up and band together for mutual defense, but it's still a harsh wilderness life.

You basically keep the incentive for people in-universe to pick a god, while downplaying the feel of swordpoint conversion. (Being thrown into an inescapable prison until you fade away isn't technically the same as being killed on the spot, but we're still talking similar levels of nasty.)

PairO'Dice Lost

2020-11-09, 02:03 PM

I guess I just can't figure out how patron gods are supposed to work in the Realms. It could be that Zale didn't have that elusive personal relationship with a god. Or maybe it was all about pledges and rituals as a sort of divine covenant (likely codified by Ao) which Zale refused to sign.

Basically, the Realms situation is "cleric lite" for everyone. Every person in the Realms worships every god at some point or another, as is standard for polytheism: take in a good harvest this year, offer thanks to Chauntea; manage to get a new job, offer thanks to Lathander; get promoted over a jerkish boss, offer thanks to Bane; survived a stormy sea voyage, offer thanks to Umberlee; and so on. But just like how clerics have a special relationship with their patron gods, everyone also offers extra devotion to a particular god with which they resonate the most, for reasons spiritual (Sune's values appeal to them the most) or practical (they're a merchant so having Waukeen's favor is a good thing) or regional (their village was saved from a massive storm a generation ago so now everyone of a certain age worships Talos) or otherwise.

What that means is that a relationship with a patron god isn't one-size-fits-all. We've seen clerics with close personal relationships with their patrons (early Elminster with Mystra), clerics with a sort of "chosen one" position who get more attention but not necessarily more communication (Cadderly with Deneir), and clerics who view it as a mostly transactional relationship (Variance Amatick with Shar); we've seen clerics who love their patron (Adon with Sune), clerics who fear their patron (Malik with Cyric), and clerics who merely put up with their patron (Erevis Cale with Mask). So it doesn't matter what specifically a given person does with respect to their patron or how they feel or whatever, whether they want to keep their patron in their thoughts at all times or mostly leave that to the temple services on weekends, what matters is that they choose a patron and follow through with whatever they think a patron-worshiper relationship looks like.

However, supposing you were to take that "natural physics of the universe" background, and attempt to superimpose a "gods take souls to their individual divine realms" motif instead of a general "souls to go a plane" physics.

OK, sure, you might still have a few unclaimed souls. What do you do with them?

Well, why not just let them go to the plane that is drawing them? Wouldn't that be better than creating the "wall of atheism"?

Paradoxically, it's worse for the Good gods if they just let things take their natural course, as Kelemvor kinda sorta realized. Good souls ending up in the Upper Planes and Evil souls ending up in the Lower Planes outside of any god's realm become petitioners with basically no memory of their previous lives, which sucks for everyone regardless of alignment, but the baseline suckitude of a Good soul's afterlife is much less than that of an Evil soul's afterlife. So a Faithless free-for-all policy is likely to lead to more Good Faithless than Evil ones, weakening the Good gods and making conditions incrementally worse on Toril, making Good people not trust in the Good gods to have their backs, leading to more Good faithless, weakening the Good gods....

The Evil gods, of course, presumably like having the Wall as an alternative to point to. "Bane or eternal torment in the Wall" is a much more palatable choice than "Bane or a chance to work your way up the Baatorian hierarchy without him" to any Banite who joined out of duress/ignorance/foolishness/etc. and is starting to have second thoughts. And if any mortal thinks that's an unconscionable thing the Good gods shouldn't put up with and they're hardly Good if they don't tear it down? Welp, that's one fewer soul for the side of Good!

Of course, none of this is a problem without Ao's "thou shalt live and die based on worship base" decree, but given that that's in place, one can see why the Good gods might hold their noses and put up with it and why the Evil ones are in no hurry to get rid of it.

Theoretically sure, but why would no god claim a soul? Pre-5e, theyre literally empowered by it, so its in their interests to go and grab as many as they can, and even after that the Time of Troubles is still pretty fresh in their minds, so they arent going to go around neglecting their godly duties to mortals for a while yet.

It's less that no god would want to claim a soul and more that there have to be strict rules about when one's allowed to claim a given soul or you run into all sorts of problems, with gods claiming jurisdiction based on tenuous reasons or gods with more power and bigger portfolios hogging more souls because they can throw their weight around or the like. "Faithless souls cannot be claimed by any god, period" is the least objectionable compromise position.

Since the actual bad, everyone agrees, wall only makes ANY form of sense in 3rd Edition, why not simply ignore its existence later on, or reqrite it to the Wall of Mirrors or similar?
As its rather obvious its return wasnt part of a great new planar concept, but msotly laziness/bad research? ^^

I do precisely that. All of the Realms campaigns I've ever run have occurred in the same "timeline," with previous parties' achievements and legacies being occasionally referenced and bits of canon being changed based on prior events. While running my first 3e Realms campaign the party was pissed when they found out that the Wall had been brought back, so the next campaign was set in the late 1360s DR (shortly before the canonical 3e switchover in 1372 DR that would technically be the point at which the Wall would have come back) and consisted of a party of PCs who were disillusioned with the gods for various reason and made it their mission to prevent the Wall's return when they got to be powerful enough to do so. That party succeeded in their goal, so in my Realms there has never been a Wall post-Time of Troubles, Kelemvor took a different approach with the Faithless and False, and the whole afterlife system has been altered accordingly.

Jason

2020-11-09, 02:04 PM

AD&D 1e made the maximum strength for women something like 3-5 lower than men, across races. While women could be fighters, 1e made them decidedly worse.
Not exactly. AD&D did cap strength at character generation for some races and genders. Female halflings maxed out at 14 strength, for instance. But there were also minimum scores - all dwarves had to have at least 8 strength, for instance. Strength wasn't the only stat with caps by race either. Max intelligence for a half-orc was 17, for instance, and max Charisma for a dwarf was 16. Your stats were modified by your race, but you also had to roll stats that reached the minimums for the race you wanted to play in order to play that race.

A female human of any class other than fighter had the same maximum strength as a male human: 18.
Fighters (and Rangers and Paladins, which are considered subclasses of Fighters) were the exception. Fighters who rolled an 18 strength got to roll for "exceptional strength" as a class feature, rolling a percentile die. Max strength for a human was 18/00 strength. Female human fighters were capped at 18/50. In game terms that meant the very rare (but never as rare as he statistically should have been:smallamused:) 18/00 human male fighter had a +3 to-hit and +6 damage bonus, while the somewhat more common 18/50 fighter, male or female, had +1 to-hit and +3 damage.
Strength was the only attribute where females had a lower cap than males for any race. The caps were equal between the sexes for all other attributes. It was explained as an attempt at realism, not sexism.

2nd edition dropped any strength limits by sex, but kept the racial minimum attributes and some of the caps. Halfling fighters still couldn't roll for exceptional strength. They were limited to 18 strength.

EDIT: Note that later editions still have attribute caps based on race, they are just less overt. Starting humans for instance max out at 19 Strength in 5th edition, while a dragonborn or half-orc can start at 20 strength.

Quertus

2020-11-09, 03:22 PM

Theoretically sure, but why would no god claim a soul? Pre-5e, theyre literally empowered by it, so its in their interests to go and grab as many as they can, and even after that the Time of Troubles is still pretty fresh in their minds, so they arent going to go around neglecting their godly duties to mortals for a while yet.

No, we Illithids have a superior deity, who proved that assertion to be incorrect: gods are *not* empowered by petitioners, but by *living* followers. As demonstrated by all they followers' souls being eaten by elder brains.

Indeed, I still bemoan it.

It seems the author caught a lot of flak in forums for "making his theoretically kinda Good Chaos Guys" only fight the other Settings GOOD guys, and it made him do a terrible rewrite.

Sadly he seemed to be unable or willing to return to the original.

And while I can see a lot of bashing there, most of it was pretty much "how I would ahve done it were I Chaos and kinda invading", so ^^

But BTT:

Since the actual bad, everyone agrees, wall only makes ANY form of sense in 3rd Edition, why not simply ignore its existence later on, or reqrite it to the Wall of Mirrors or similar?
As its rather obvious its return wasnt part of a great new planar concept, but msotly laziness/bad research? ^^

There's… an alternate version? Have I must! (You can help with this, yes yes?)

It's a pity his fans lacked the ability to handle the moral "ambiguity" of good vs good (or "good" vs "good"). Makes the comments by Lars about discussing morality with demons, and their simplistic views, sound like it was actually directed at his fans. (Apropos to this thread, I thoroughly agree with his assertion that evil is a saint doing what he believes that he must - sounds like Good's misguided defense of the Wall to me.)

As to the wall, it's just one more reason for most of my characters to want to overthrow the gods and fix the world.

LibraryOgre

2020-11-09, 06:32 PM

Not exactly.

...

Absolutely none of that contradicted what I said... women had lower strength caps in absolutely every case, making them worse fighters. And they may have called it "realism", but the result was sexism.

Quertus

2020-11-09, 07:00 PM

Absolutely none of that contradicted what I said... women had lower strength caps in absolutely every case, making them worse fighters. And they may have called it "realism", but the result was sexism.

As a moderator, I would love your input I would love to hear your input as a moderator on just how hard I can push back on statements like this. That said…

How are you defining being ____ist? Dwarves have lower Strength caps than Minotaurs - is that racist (speciesist)? Humans move slower than horses - is that ____ist?

Most records, sports, and Olympic events are separated by (biological?) gender, are they not? With men presumably still holding higher records for pure strength-based challenges.

Where does something stop being (or become more than) Science or Realism?

(Mind you, I say all this as someone who was happy when they removed gender differences to stats - my concern is with the accusation of sexism)

Jason

2020-11-09, 07:04 PM

Absolutely none of that contradicted what I said... women had lower strength caps in absolutely every case, making them worse fighters. And they may have called it "realism", but the result was sexism.

No, im not contradicting you, just correcting the details. You said "3-5 points". That was inaccurate. It also wasn't the full context, since caps were present on other attributes for other races regardless of gender or racial adjustments as well.
In fact, only male human fighters could have 18/00 strength. Even male half-orc and dwarf fighters were limited to 18/99. And half-orcs had a +1 racial adjustment and therefore could theoretically at least roll a 19 for their starting strength (unfortunately for someone who rolled an 18 with a +1 racial adjustment none of the attribute tables in the 1st edition PHB go above 18. The 2nd edition tables went up to 25).

It's realistic because the very strongest human males do actually have a biological advantage over the very strongest females when it comes to raw lifting strength. Look at Olympic weight-lifting records - something Gygax cited when speaking about strength and why he set things up as he did.

Vahnavoi

2020-11-10, 04:37 AM

See, Jason, details of the system don't matter if the fundamental argument your up against is equivalent to "any acknowledgement of physical differences between sexes in game rules is sexist".

GloatingSwine

2020-11-10, 06:28 AM

See, Jason, details of the system don't matter if the fundamental argument your up against is equivalent to "any acknowledgement of physical differences between sexes in game rules is sexist".

Yes. Because games exist to let people play outside of the context where that is true.

There is no argument from "realism", because the game does not exist to simulate reality, it exists to facilitate heroic roleplay for everyone, no matter how they choose to incarnate themselves in the game world.

(See also: Why the Wall of the Faithless must be torn down).

Vahnavoi

2020-11-10, 07:22 AM

Theoboldi

2020-11-10, 07:51 AM

Vahnavoi

2020-11-10, 08:16 AM

GloatingSwine

2020-11-10, 08:23 AM

The tragedy of that kind of argumentation is that the rules don't actually fail at facilitating heroic roleplay for female fighters - the rules are just a casualty to a specific reading of a point the game itself (and Gygax himself) doesn't even disagree with it.

It constrains the choices for a female character in a way that it does not for a male character. The game is, in this instance, having an opinion on what it means to be female in its setting which is to the detriment of anyone who wants to be a fighter and female. They will, simply be worse because the game was of the opinion that women were worse. (it had many other opinions in the olden days, especially about what classes different races were allowed to be).

Not quite sure what this all has to do with the Wall of Faith, though, nor how that setting element discourages heroic roleplaying? As someone who's been idly observing this thread, I hope GloatingSwine can elaborate on that.

The setting is, again, having an opinion about the relationship its characters should have with the gods of the setting (by making it metaphysically necessary for mortals to worship parasitic gods, to the extent that those not sufficiently obsequious must be undone, and this is not presented as a cosmic injustice by an evil god but a necessary metaphysical concept of the universe).

Again, there's a mechanical detriment to players who disagree, souls in the wall of the faithless can't be resurrected.

Theoboldi

2020-11-10, 08:32 AM

@Theoboldi: mobile version of this site doesn't allow me to easily link to individual posts, but you might as well browse to Page 2 of this thread, to an exchange between me and NorthernPhoenix.

An argument was made that the Wall of the Faithless exists to discourage players from making Faithless characters. This is analogous to the idea that AD&D has Strength caps to discourage players from making female fighters.

Ah, thanks for pointing that out. The argument was made, though I am not sure if it's the same point Gloating is getting at. I'm not quite sure I buy that something like that was the reason, given how some official stories within the Realms revolve around characters opposing the gods and the wall. (Then again, D&D has introduced dumber elements to preserve the genres of certain settings.) Even if I were to take it as a granted, though, I'm not sure if it's comparable to gender-based strength caps.

Anyways, I'm gonna return to lurking now and see if Gloating confirms that.

Edit: Hrm, ninja'd.

Jason

2020-11-10, 08:54 AM

Yes. Because games exist to let people play outside of the context where that is true.

There is no argument from "realism", because the game does not exist to simulate reality, it exists to facilitate heroic roleplay for everyone, no matter how they choose to incarnate themselves in the game world.

(See also: Why the Wall of the Faithless must be torn down).
Basically the designers agreed with you that this was a part of reality that did not have to be simulated in D&D, and the caps on Strength by gender disappeared in 2nd Edition.

They did still have different height/weight tables by gender, until 5th edition apparently decided that part of reality didn't have to be simulated either. They did it not by creating new tables, but by eliminating the female rows of the existing table. So, effectively, the height/weight table assumes that characters will be male, since it no longer provides an option for female adventurers and it's the same numbers that were used by males in earlier editions.

GloatingSwine

2020-11-10, 09:45 AM

So, effectively, the height/weight table assumes that characters will be male, since it no longer provides an option for female adventurers and it's the same numbers that were used by males in earlier editions.

Or just that there aren't mechanically meaningful differences between adventurers because of gender or physical sex. Which is what best supports the game being open and attractive to the most number of people.

Jason

2020-11-10, 10:03 AM

Or just that there aren't mechanically meaningful differences between adventurers because of gender or physical sex. Which is what best supports the game being open and attractive to the most number of people.
In the case of the height/weight tables the game has effectively said there are no cosmetic differences between the genders any longer. Those tables were always optional and had no real game effect (unless weight came up during play, and in most such instances, such as setting off traps or having an unconscious adventurer be carried out of danger by someone who was still active, being lighter would be an advantage), so there was no mechanical advantage or disadvantage to eliminating the female entries on the table.

LibraryOgre

2020-11-10, 02:33 PM

As a moderator, I would love your input I would love to hear your input as a moderator on just how hard I can push back on statements like this. That said…

The Mod Ogre: If I reply in black text, I'm just a poster; argue as you would with anyone else. When I reply under my Mod Name, or in red text (as I'm doing now), it is Mod Voice, and all that implies. I cannot recall ever doing Mod Name without red text, outside of a PM (and then it is usually "This is your first post, and you broke this local rule, so please pay attention and have fun); Black-text-with-mod-name is technically an option, but I don't do it.

If it's not red, it's no different than replying to anyone else on these forums (save Rich, obvs).

LibraryOgre

2020-11-10, 04:13 PM

(This, incidentally, took me forever to write, since I'm at work)

How are you defining being ____ist? Dwarves have lower Strength caps than Minotaurs - is that racist (speciesist)? Humans move slower than horses - is that ____ist?

Most records, sports, and Olympic events are separated by (biological?) gender, are they not? With men presumably still holding higher records for pure strength-based challenges.

Where does something stop being (or become more than) Science or Realism?

(Mind you, I say all this as someone who was happy when they removed gender differences to stats - my concern is with the accusation of sexism)

Ad res...

This can be a bit of a judgement call, but one of my criteria (most easily judged on strength) is does it comport with real-world records (https://worldpowerlifting.com/records/womens-world-records/)?

The 48kg lifter (so, 105 pounds) has a bench record of 90 kgs (198#), which is higher than an 18 strength should be able to lift in 1e (180#). 1e also assumes a "pick up and lift over the head", which is closer to a deadlift, where the record is 168kg, or 370#. And, you may look at your 2e PH and say "Well, the Max press for 18/00 is 480#, so some limit is reasonable"... but I'm just looking at the records for the ladies weighing 48kg. We go to the highest range... the 100kg/220#+ female lifters... the deadlift number becomes 251kg/553#, which is isn't quite a 19 strength (640#), but still a fair amount. Granted, the records may have been lower in the past, but a lifter in the 48kg range did a 165kg/363# deadlift in 1981 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sue_Roberts_(powerlifter)), so they're weren't THAT much lower... and, again, we're talking a woman who weighs only about 100 pounds, not the bigger lifters (this is what I could easily find records for) (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_world_championships_medalists_in_powerlift ing_(women)).

So, the weight limits on strength already show this to be a bad rule, just from a realism standpoint; but what about a gameplay standpoint? Is it FUN for female characters to have a lower maximum strength than male characters? I don't think it is, and the fact that it applies across races makes it a bit suspect. The androgynous elves have the same limitation? The uniformly masculine dwarves? So, I feel safe saying that's based in sexism.

As for fantasy racial modifiers, those get a little bit more of a question, because, as you point out, there's little reason a 7' tall minotaur and a 5' elf should have the same strength modifier. 3e addressed some of this... I think increasing weapon sizes and carrying weights based on size is a great idea, and Hackmaster gives bonus HP based on size, as well... but there's always the question of "Well, they're just that way. It's biology", which doesn't have much of a counter-argument with made-up species. And then it becomes a question of how the stereotypes of a given race line up with real-world stereotypes.

It's always a minefield, but that means it needs careful stepping, not charging through at maximum velocity.

Jason

2020-11-10, 05:33 PM

So, the weight limits on strength already show this to be a bad rule, just from a realism standpoint;
Just to be clear, you are saying the overall lifting limits in AD&D fail the realism test because real world people have lifted more than the upper limits given, and some of them were also women, correct?
Because overall limits that are too low is a different issue than whether the strongest men can in fact lift more than the strongest women, which is what the upper limits on female strength were supposed to reflect.

Looking at the same source you use, it is obvious that the male records are higher than the female records, even when the weight classes are close or overlap. Example: men's 62kg record is 590kg, while the women's 64kg record is 460kg. Men's 69kg record is 651kg while women's 75kg is 500kg, etc. So having the very strongest males be stronger than the very strongest females seems to be realistic, at least for humans.
These people are really, really strong - the highest men's record is 1042kg, more than a ton! The women max out at 598kg. That's a pretty extreme difference between the very strongest men and the very strongest women, more than 400kg difference.

but what about a gameplay standpoint? Is it FUN for female characters to have a lower maximum strength than male characters?
That would be why it was taken out for 2nd edition. Gender-specific caps on strength were perhaps more realistic, but not more fun, and this is a fantasy game after all.

Now, the fact that human male fighters have a higher strength limit than half-orcs, who have a +1 strength racial adjustment, would be a better case for designer bias. Obviously Gygax just wanted human fighters to be better than half-orcs, as there doesn't seem to be any other explanation for the limit. Half-orc fighters are limited to level 10 as well. That's higher than the other non-human fighters, but humans have unlimited advancement in all clases. Half-orcs only have unlimited advancement in the Assassin class.

Millstone85

2020-11-10, 05:35 PM

Oh, oh, oh... WotC just released a new errata pdf for the Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide, and guess what?

Oh my sweet Lord Kelemvor! :smallsmile:

[NEW] The Afterlife (p. 20). In the second paragraph, the last sentence has been deleted.

The truly false and faithless are mortared into the Wall of the Faithless, the great barrier that bounds the City of the Dead, where their souls slowly dissolve and begin to become part of the stuff of the Wall itself.They deleted the Wall! They errata'd it down! :smallcool:

*Does the happy dance*

GrayDeath

2020-11-10, 06:10 PM

Wait, you mean they actually did something most of the players APPROVE of?

How...why....must....understand....:smalleek::smal lconfused:

Anymage

2020-11-10, 06:22 PM

PhoenixPhyre

2020-11-10, 08:07 PM

I wonder if lorewise it'll be retconned out entirely, torn down for to-be-revealed plot reasons, or just caught up to the wall of mirrors and now everyone's on the same page.

Still, can't say I'm unhappy when something that pointlessly upsets people gets changed.

My guess--retconned. To the best of my knowledge, it's never been used as a canon piece of any other published, 1st party work in 5e (although I can't speak to all the novels, which don't seem to be coming out anymore anyway). And SCAG was only sort of 1st-party--it was licensed out to Green Ronin in the first place. So my guess is that they're just going to disavow any knowledge of such things. Wall of the Faithless? What ever are you talking about? No such thing has ever existed. Right guys? :smalltongue:

Mechalich

2020-11-10, 08:43 PM

My guess--retconned. To the best of my knowledge, it's never been used as a canon piece of any other published, 1st party work in 5e (although I can't speak to all the novels, which don't seem to be coming out anymore anyway). And SCAG was only sort of 1st-party--it was licensed out to Green Ronin in the first place. So my guess is that they're just going to disavow any knowledge of such things. Wall of the Faithless? What ever are you talking about? No such thing has ever existed. Right guys? :smalltongue:

Earlier in the thread I said the reason the Wall got brought back was bad copypasta, and this change pretty much confirms that reasoning. Whoever wrote SCAG simply wasn't up on the - really rather obscure - fact that the Wall had been changed/eliminated two editions back and simply slotted in the earlier version from memory or an early source.

PhoenixPhyre

2020-11-10, 09:30 PM

Earlier in the thread I said the reason the Wall got brought back was bad copypasta, and this change pretty much confirms that reasoning. Whoever wrote SCAG simply wasn't up on the - really rather obscure - fact that the Wall had been changed/eliminated two editions back and simply slotted in the earlier version from memory or an early source.

I basically agree. From what I hear (I don't own SCAG) there was quite a bit of "older-edition hangover" in that book. Things that were assumed to carry over but not stated as much. I'll note that there's nothing in the style guide for FR (freely available on DMs Guild) that says it exists, and it covers quite a bit about everyone being religious/active gods. And there are strong notes in the general style guide not to assume that anything from previous editions still holds unless it's said in a first-party publication.

Millstone85

2020-11-11, 11:47 AM

That leaves us with the previous sentences, in both senses of the word.

Souls that are unclaimed by the servants of the gods are judged by Kelemvor, who decides the fate of each one. Some are charged with serving as guides for other lost souls, while others are transformed into squirming larvae and cast into the dust.From this, I get that:

Lacking divine sponsorship still bars you from simply reaching the plane of your alignment. Could Kelemvor let you go if you work hard enough?
The bit about larvae suggests that the Fugue Plane is still part of the Gray Waste of Hades, though it wouldn't be incompatible with the Shadowfell.
Even souls who escape that transformation are left in a bleak environment, probably more undead than afterliving.
Kelemvor effectively claims souls by default. And unlike Hel in OotS, he is not forbidden to have a living clergy. Not a bad portfolio, eh?

Well, I don't mind this. You can easily headcanon that it is the nature of the Fugue Plane to trap souls, which can then only be freed by divine intervention. Whereas the Wall was difficult to see as anything but a deliberate punishment for not worshipping the gods.

Theoboldi

2020-11-11, 12:07 PM

Well, I don't mind this. You can easily headcanon that it is the nature of the Fugue Plane to trap souls, which can then only be freed by divine intervention. Whereas the Wall was difficult to see as anything but a deliberate punishment for not worshipping the gods.

So, I'm not gonna miss the Wall, and in fact in my headcanon for my games I already ruled it kind of like this version of the Fugue Plane. And while I do think this puts the gods in-character in a better light, I wonder if on a meta level people wouldn't still feel like this sort of afterlife is a punishment for atheistic characters.

It's still pretty cruddy, after all, and leaves the characters at the mercy of a god anyways. At least it's more equal opportunity, with some seemingly positive outcomes.

LibraryOgre

2020-11-11, 01:07 PM

Just to be clear, you are saying the overall lifting limits in AD&D fail the realism test because real world people have lifted more than the upper limits given, and some of them were also women, correct?
Because overall limits that are too low is a different issue than whether the strongest men can in fact lift more than the strongest women, which is what the upper limits on female strength were supposed to reflect.

I am saying that the artificial limit on women's strength fails, because there are women who can exceed it; one might argue that this would also mean that humans should be able to exceed that, but I have less of a problem with an artificial cap on all human ability that is lower than absolute human maximum... everyone is subject to the same cap, and any cap is going to be artificial.

Basically, the women's strength cap fails the realism test; an absolute limit on strength likewise does, but it has less impact on the fun of the game.

Keltest

2020-11-11, 01:36 PM

I am saying that the artificial limit on women's strength fails, because there are women who can exceed it; one might argue that this would also mean that humans should be able to exceed that, but I have less of a problem with an artificial cap on all human ability that is lower than absolute human maximum... everyone is subject to the same cap, and any cap is going to be artificial.

Basically, the women's strength cap fails the realism test; an absolute limit on strength likewise does, but it has less impact on the fun of the game.

Dont most weight lifters overspecialize in their one specific aspect of strength in order to reach those limits though? As opposed to an adventurer, who would be more well rounded by necessity.

Jason

2020-11-11, 02:04 PM

Dont most weight lifters overspecialize in their one specific aspect of strength in order to reach those limits though? As opposed to an adventurer, who would be more well rounded by necessity.

Plus most adventurers are carrying that weight for long distances, not just picking it up and putting it down again, and they aren't at a controlled meet with perrrectly-balanced weights and time to carefully prepare before each lift, and chalk for the hands and lift belts for back support, and...

PhoenixPhyre

2020-11-11, 03:02 PM

Plus most adventurers are carrying that weight for long distances, not just picking it up and putting it down again, and they aren't at a controlled meet with perrrectly-balanced weights and time to carefully prepare before each lift, and chalk for the hands and lift belts for back support, and...

And are frequently carrying heavy weights...while also dashing on uncertain footing, dodging blows, climbing with one hand and attacking with another, etc.

For me, personally, I'd just ditch the obsession with realism overall. Judge things like weight limits by how they affect the aesthetic you want to produce and the types of gameplay it supports. For instance, a logistics-heavy survival game needs very different weight limits than a heroic action game. None of this is about realism (except in very wide bounds) but about consonance between setting and gameplay.

My favorite example is that an average strength (STR 10) D&D 5e level 20 fighter can (given a single feat), in the span of 6 seconds do all of:
* run 30 feet with as many turns, pirouettes, and dodges as he wants
* make up to 8 independent, aimed shots at up to 8 targets within 120 feet with no penalties with a heavy crossbow up to 6x/day
* make up to 4 independent, aimed shots with a heavy crossbow the remaining rounds of the day.
* while carrying up to 150 pounds of gear

And can do this day in and day out, surviving on combat rations and a regular amount of water.

noob

2020-11-11, 05:17 PM

And are frequently carrying heavy weights...while also dashing on uncertain footing, dodging blows, climbing with one hand and attacking with another, etc.

For me, personally, I'd just ditch the obsession with realism overall. Judge things like weight limits by how they affect the aesthetic you want to produce and the types of gameplay it supports. For instance, a logistics-heavy survival game needs very different weight limits than a heroic action game. None of this is about realism (except in very wide bounds) but about consonance between setting and gameplay.

My favorite example is that an average strength (STR 10) D&D 5e level 20 fighter can (given a single feat), in the span of 6 seconds do all of:
* run 30 feet with as many turns, pirouettes, and dodges as he wants
* make up to 8 independent, aimed shots at up to 8 targets within 120 feet with no penalties with a heavy crossbow up to 6x/day
* make up to 4 independent, aimed shots with a heavy crossbow the remaining rounds of the day.
* while carrying up to 150 pounds of gear

And can do this day in and day out, surviving on combat rations and a regular amount of water.

And if you use the optional starvation rules they can even skip food half of the days and be fine.

Jason

2020-11-11, 06:54 PM

My favorite example is that an average strength (STR 10) D&D 5e level 20 fighter can (given a single feat), in the span of 6 seconds do all of:
What is average about a 20th level fighter with only 10 strength and one feat?

PhoenixPhyre

2020-11-11, 07:57 PM

What is average about a 20th level fighter with only 10 strength and one feat?
I'm not sure what you mean here.

In 5e (in particular), you can build dexterity-based fighters as well as strength-based ones. And if you're a dex build, you don't need STR for anything really. So it's totally normal to have a 10-STR (or even 8-STR), 20-DEX (hitting the stat cap) high level fighter. And feats are a precious resource--the most you can end up with is 7, if you're a variant human and you give up every single chance to boost your ability scores. So many level 20 characters will have 1 or 0 feats.

But the point was that that's not all that optimized or special of a build. And it can do all sorts of things that, well, stretch credibility. Each one (except for the rate of fire) is not that unusual--there are lots of people who can carry 150 lbs of gear. Not average strength people, at least on earth, but it's not outside human capacity. Running 30' in 6 seconds isn't actually that fast. Doing it in armor, on uneven ground, while carrying 150 lbs of gear is more unusual, but still not superhuman. Doing it while also shooting a heavy crossbow at several multiples of the normal fire rate (which is measured in shots per minute for most cranked crossbows) pushes it well outside the norm. And being able to do it multiple times a day, day after day without ever getting exhausted is not normal either. Basically, the combination of capabilities is unrealistic, despite individual ones being possible (if not plausible).

In essence, D&D has already left realism far in the dust. So adding it back in for female vs male carrying capacity just doesn't give anything useful in my opinion. Or any of the other concessions to "realism" I hear. It doesn't fit the genre or aesthetic. And that's what's important.

PairO'Dice Lost

2020-11-11, 09:55 PM

In essence, D&D has already left realism far in the dust. So adding it back in for female vs male carrying capacity just doesn't give anything useful in my opinion. Or any of the other concessions to "realism" I hear. It doesn't fit the genre or aesthetic. And that's what's important.

D&D leaves realism in the dust at high levels, which is an important caveat. One of the key aspects of heroic fantasy in general and the whole zero-to-hero thing in particular is that most of the world is quite realistic most of the time, including heroes when they're starting out, with the major protagonists and antagonists, legendary monsters, etc. being increasingly unrealistic the further they fall from the baseline.

Where a more pure swords-and-sorcery game like Burning Wheel or Riddle of Steel expects characters to start as basically normal people and never really leave those bounds aside from perhaps a few concessions to cinematic tropes, and a more pure high-fantasy game like Ars Magic or Exalted lets characters tell the laws of physics to sit down and shut up right out of the gate, D&D lies in a middle ground where keeping things verisimilar at 1st level where one might struggle in a fight against a band of goblins is important but limiting things based on verisimilitude at 20th level where one might have already killed a demon prince or two (or even at 10th level where one has likely already taken on physically-impossible monsters and survived) is actively undesirable.

So while the specific case of gendered carrying capacity isn't a good thing (for reasons statistical to practical to narrative), the general drive for verisimilitude in the appropriate level range most certainly is.

PhoenixPhyre

2020-11-11, 10:08 PM

D&D leaves realism in the dust at high levels, which is an important caveat. One of the key aspects of heroic fantasy in general and the whole zero-to-hero thing in particular is that most of the world is quite realistic most of the time, including heroes when they're starting out, with the major protagonists and antagonists, legendary monsters, etc. being increasingly unrealistic the further they fall from the baseline.

Where a more pure swords-and-sorcery game like Burning Wheel or Riddle of Steel expects characters to start as basically normal people and never really leave those bounds aside from perhaps a few concessions to cinematic tropes, and a more pure high-fantasy game like Ars Magic or Exalted lets characters tell the laws of physics to sit down and shut up right out of the gate, D&D lies in a middle ground where keeping things verisimilar at 1st level where one might struggle in a fight against a band of goblins is important but limiting things based on verisimilitude at 20th level where one might have already killed a demon prince or two (or even at 10th level where one has likely already taken on physically-impossible monsters and survived) is actively undesirable.

So while the specific case of gendered carrying capacity isn't a good thing (for reasons statistical to practical to narrative), the general drive for verisimilitude in the appropriate level range most certainly is.

Even from first level in D&D, at least in 5e. Sure, you're only shooting one heavy crossbow bolt every 6 seconds (2 about 3x/day), but you're still doing everything else exactly the same.

Because really, D&D isn't based on reality. It's based on epic fantasy, which shares much more root and aesthetic with action hero and superhero shows/movies. Even at 1st level you're pushing the bounds of plausibility (not in individual capabilities but in the collective set). By 5th level you're standing toe to toe with monsters that should obliterate you. And recovering from near-death completely by the next day.

Realism isn't in the picture. Instead, D&D obeys to its own particular logic, subservient to the needs of the genre and to the aesthetics being developed

Bohandas

2020-11-12, 12:29 AM

This is one of those loaded questions where if one post goes the wrong way, we wind up with a locked thread, so, I will try to proceed with caution.

The only justification for the Cataclysm springs from two things:
(1) The Dragonlance gods are sentient, and imperfect beings but not omnipotent; and
(2) The entire setting is premised on the absolute necessity of good and evil coexisting in the world, which is a pretty weird way to view reality.

The justification for the Cataclysm is given by Paladine: they (or he alone, in some accounts) saw that the Kingpriest of Istar if unchecked would proceed to use the gods' powers to eliminate not just evil, but anything that disagreed with him. After 13 Warnings, and after pulling out all the clerics who still actually believed in their gods (most didn't), the gods hurled the fiery mountain at Istar, destroying it and sending the world into disaster. It also had the effect of removing all current power bases which were essentially dependent on, or followed the views of, Istar. The Solamnic Knights survived but were shamed into exile in pretty well every land except Solamnia itself. It was a brutal way to reset the board, but the gods didn't apparently see any other way to intervene with the Kingpriest and restore the balance. Not to mention that as said, the gods had already pulled out all of their clerics and anyone who still believed and followed the will of the gods (Lord Soth being one who believed in the gods and had the chance to avert the Cataclysm, but purposefully turned away from the opportunity to save the world.)

This justification is pretty contestable from a moral standpoint in our world, but it is internally consistent to the setting - remembering that the setting requires coexistent good and evil and maintains gods who can see the future but are not omnipotent and who are not perfect. So that's the justification: it's required by the rules the setting puts up for itself. This is a separate issue from whether it's icky or genocidal or immoral to throw fiery mountains at people in our own world.

It's not just the severity and brutality of the destruction that's at issue though, it's also the fact that it was partly caused by the gods' own poor communication skills and their insistence on commu icating via passive-aggressive gestures rather than straight talk

PairO'Dice Lost

2020-11-12, 12:31 AM

Even from first level in D&D, at least in 5e. Sure, you're only shooting one heavy crossbow bolt every 6 seconds (2 about 3x/day), but you're still doing everything else exactly the same.

That particular case is specific to 5e (as so many low-level realism issues are); in 3e reloading a heavy crossbow is a full-round action so you're getting one bolt off every 12 seconds, accurate to the historical rate of fire of 4 to 5 bolts per minute for heavy crossbows that didn't require a windlass, and in AD&D rounds were 1 minute long so one shot per round was on the slow side but still accurate.

As to the "still doing everything else the same" part, 30 feet per round is a speed of 3.4 miles per hour (a standard walking pace) while the encumbrance limit at Str 10 before your speed is reduced is 33# in 3e (just about the average weight of a hiking backpack for an adult male hiker) or 50# in 5e (numbers are off there, but that's nothing new), so really, "amble 30 feet and fire a crossbow while carrying a normal backpack" is nothing extraordinary.

Even at 1st level you're pushing the bounds of plausibility (not in individual capabilities but in the collective set). By 5th level you're standing toe to toe with monsters that should obliterate you. And recovering from near-death completely by the next day.

Another 5e-ism. In 5e your 10th-level fighter with 100 HP might heal up to full with a bit of bed rest, but his 3e equivalent takes 10 days to heal up to full without healing magic or medical care (reasonable, as most major non-fatal wounds take 1 to 3 weeks to heal up to full capability and 10th-level fighters are already superhuman) and his 1e equivalent takes a whopping 100 days to heal to full. All of these examples are saying nothing about D&D in general and everything about how the 5e devs can't do math and wouldn't know verisimilitude if it slapped them upside the head with haddock. :smallamused:

Because really, D&D isn't based on reality. It's based on epic fantasy, which shares much more root and aesthetic with action hero and superhero shows/movies.

No, D&D takes inspiration from several different genres of fantasy, most prominently swords and sorcery like Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser, high fantasy like Lord of the Rings, epic fantasy like the Elric Saga, historical fantasy like Three Hearts and Three Lions, and science fantasy like the Dying Earth, all of which are listed as inspiration in Appendix N of the 1e DMG. It is deliberately an amalgamation and interpolation of those genres (in the same way that it started off as a deliberate amalgamation of fantasy, science fiction, and cosmic horror--see: psionics, nuclear reactors in Blackmoor, Expedition to the Barrier Peaks, etc.--though those influences have been "blended in" and given a more fantasy coat of paint as the editions progressed) that can be stretched and tweaked in various directions based on the campaign or the setting in use.

Throwing away the vast majority of the game's influences and then trying to pigeonhole it into one genre that it was "really based on" is historically inaccurate and completely missing the point.

Bohandas

2020-11-12, 01:04 AM

Jason

2020-11-12, 02:27 AM

No, D&D takes inspiration from several different genres of fantasy, most prominently swords and sorcery like Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser, high fantasy like Lord of the Rings, epic fantasy like the Elric Saga, historical fantasy like Three Hearts and Three Lions, and science fantasy like the Dying Earth, all of which are listed as inspiration in Appendix N of the 1e DMG.
Three Hearts and Three Lions is not historical fiction. It's high fantasy all the way, with Chaos vs. Law, enchantresses, water nymphs, dwarves and elves, and ogres. It's hero is the most likely inspiration for paladins in AD&D. It is definitely where the idea for regenerating trolls came from, and it also has a swanmay (MMII) as the love interest.

Bohandas

2020-11-12, 02:50 AM

Technically Dice said "historical fantasy"

RifleAvenger

2020-11-12, 03:43 AM

I can't believe it. They actually did it! The impossible!

They removed outdated and problematic kludge from Forgotten Realms!

/hyperbole aside, I'm glad the Wall is gone.

------------------------------------------------

Talk about how D&D was "realistic" at low levels in other editions.
I once played a man in 3e who summoned, ex nihilo, fusions of plant and animal that could create bramble walls from nothing...

... after summoning fey (any below a given HD from any published source, ever) for minutes at a time to do his bidding in various magical ways (hacking my way into spells way above my level in the process)...

... and then added his own ability to change the landscape to his whims X times/day...

... all while having a magical dirt man who somehow moved through rock like there was nothing there and functioned like a living sonar.

That was all at 3rd level. At 5th he could turn into a dinosaur. Oh, and from 1st he turned raisins into the world's greatest superfood.

1e and AD&D had ridiculous kitchen sink dungeons whose purpose and function fell apart the moment one applied critical thinking to them.

5e can be markedly less gritty at lower level than earlier editions, but that has little to do with how "realistic" D&D actually is.

Willie the Duck

2020-11-12, 08:39 AM

All of these examples are saying nothing about D&D in general and everything about how the 5e devs can't do math and wouldn't know verisimilitude if it slapped them upside the head with haddock.

Or, you know, they knew exactly what they were doing and simply didn't have the same priorities as the 'but realism...' crowd. I've never understood this notion that the devs don't know something (especially something as obvious as '5e healing rates are unrealistic') rather than the more realistic (hah!) idea that they know and simply don't care.

I am saying that the artificial limit on women's strength fails, because there are women who can exceed it; one might argue that this would also mean that humans should be able to exceed that, but I have less of a problem with an artificial cap on all human ability that is lower than absolute human maximum... everyone is subject to the same cap, and any cap is going to be artificial.

Basically, the women's strength cap fails the realism test; an absolute limit on strength likewise does, but it has less impact on the fun of the game.

I don't think a lot of us who started within that early time period ever bought the realism idea anyways. Women characters (as a mechanically different thing at least) were introduced to the game with alternate rules, alternate level titles, and special abilities like "Charm men, Seduction and Charm Humanoid Monster." This speaks to genre-emulation more than anything else, not realism. D&D has always tried to have it both ways (with varying emphasis on each side) as to whether it was trying to be realistic or genre-emulative. Which is fine. However, from the jump the differing rules based on gender appeared to more say, 'female characters are supposed to represent Conan's plucky female sidekick of the given short story or the femme fatale,' not 'it's only realistic that the female character wouldn't be as strong.' That smells wholly of a retro-justification.

I can't believe it. They actually did it! The impossible!
They removed outdated and problematic kludge from Forgotten Realms!
They are occasionally capable of listening. I can't decide if this surprises me or not. Mind you, I suspect forums like this aren't exactly representative, and most gamers just plain didn't care one way or the other. So it is somewhat surprising to me that they finally decided that this was important. However, I also guess this wasn't a huge hurdle anyways (and they were updating SCAG for the Tasha's release anyways). I guess mildly surprised is where I land.

1e and AD&D had ridiculous kitchen sink dungeons whose purpose and function fell apart the moment one applied critical thinking to them.
I think you mean 0e and AD&D or 1e and oD&D, but either way, I agree. They weren't intended to be realistic at that point because it hadn't been communicated to the company (although, let's be clear, TSR never once was good at communication with their fanbase) that that was something people cared about. One of the early DMs at the tables at which Gary/Dave played (It was someone like Mike Mornard or Rob Kuntz) was asked what the monsters in the dungeon ate, and thus put in a food court.

Jason

2020-11-12, 08:56 AM

Technically Dice said "historical fantasy"
Which would be what, fantasy set in a real life historical period? That's not what Three Hearts and Three Lions is, except maybe the prologue, where the protagonist is fighting a battle in World War II before he is swept off to the fantasy world. By that criteria The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe would be historical fantasy.

I'm not sure I would call The Dying Earth stories "science fanrasy" either. They're pretty much just low fantasy that happens to be set in a far-future earth, with very few science fiction tropes.

Palanan

2020-11-12, 10:31 AM

Originally Posted by Willie the Duck
Mind you, I suspect forums like this aren't exactly representative, and most gamers just plain didn't care one way or the other.

Quite sure you’re correct on both counts. As noted much earlier in this thread, there’s really very little awareness of the Wall and even less caring out in the general gaming population.

I personally don’t see why anyone is elated that two lines of text are errata’d away, when those two lines can be and usually are ignored by those who don’t like them.

But then, I’ve never made it more than two pages through an FR novel, and I certainly don’t follow the nuances of which Realms deity said what on Tuesday morning in DR 1283 or whatever. I’ve done most of my 3.X gaming in the Realms, but I can’t recall any other player even mentioning one of the novels. I have a feeling that’s more typical than otherwise.

Originally Posted by Willie the Duck
Personally I don't overthink the D&D canon.

Best attitude towards it all.

Originally Posted by Jason
I'm not sure I would call The Dying Earth stories "science fanrasy" either. They're pretty much just low fantasy that happens to be set in a far-future earth, with very few science fiction tropes.

You could just as easily call it science fiction with a few fantasy tropes. “Science fantasy” is as good a term as any.

Jason

2020-11-12, 11:42 AM

I personally don’t see why anyone is elated that two lines of text are errata’d away, when those two lines can be and usually are ignored by those who don’t like them.
Yep. It was a throw-away reference to past novel continuity, not a fundamental part of the Forgotten Realms setting.
In any case, the two lines are still in the book on my shelf unless I decide I should scratch them out rather than just continue to ignore them.

But then, I’ve never made it more than two pages through an FR novel, and I certainly don’t follow the nuances of which Realms deity said what on Tuesday morning in DR 1283 or whatever. I’ve done most of my 3.X gaming in the Realms, but I can’t recall any other player even mentioning one of the novels. I have a feeling that’s more typical than otherwise.I've managed maybe three FR novels. They haven't ever come up at the gaming table.

You could just as easily call it science fiction with a few fantasy tropes. “Science fantasy” is as good a term as any.My point, I guess, is that if you want to see how these books influenced AD&D you should probably read the books. I didn't read either Three Hearts and Three Lions or the Dying Earth stories until a few years ago. When I did it became obvious to me where some of the ideas in AD&D came from.

I recently read the Retief stories and am making my way through the Dumarest books and having the same experience with Traveller. "Oh, so that's where the name of the game came from, and why it's spelled in the British fashion."

Telok

2020-11-12, 01:35 PM

I've never understood this notion that the devs don't know something (especially something as obvious as '5e healing rates are unrealistic') rather than the more realistic (hah!) idea that they know and simply don't care.

There have been repeated issues with dev failures of understanding basic statistics and dice probabilities through the last 3 editions, especially with regards to the outcomes of things with multiple rolls. Since mid-3e it's been my habit to check the math for anything they do that involves more than one roll.

That's actually semi-off thread, but there have been enough face-palms over the years that I don't assume the devs really know basic math any more.

Xervous

2020-11-12, 03:31 PM

Mechalich

2020-11-12, 07:48 PM

There have been repeated issues with dev failures of understanding basic statistics and dice probabilities through the last 3 editions, especially with regards to the outcomes of things with multiple rolls. Since mid-3e it's been my habit to check the math for anything they do that involves more than one roll.

That's actually semi-off thread, but there have been enough face-palms over the years that I don't assume the devs really know basic math any more.

Tabletop gaming developers are generally writers by training, not statisticians, mathematicians, or people in any other field with a high degree of numeric literacy. Heck, Gary Gygax's training as an insurance underwriter probably puts him well ahead of average in terms of mathematics training among TTRPG devs. Also, TTRPG design teams are small. These aren't big corporate projects overseen by huge groups of people with multiple departments. Whole game systems are put together by 6-8 people on a regular basis, and even large gaming books can be composed entirely by one person and only edited by one other person. This is definitely true in 5e, which has a tiny design group (3e's was larger, probably the biggest its ever been for any TTRPG).

Consequently math errors and continuity errors with regard to fluff are extremely common, doubly so among books that are produced by the method of writers contributing largely independent sections that are then cobbled together by a single design tasked with oversight. To get a continuity error like the Wall of the Faithless in 5e all you need is one person to misremember something, and one other person to not question the factoid and bother to double check. This is especially likely since the actual writers may not be especially familiar with the setting, certainly not on the same level as many of the biggest fans.

PhoenixPhyre

2020-11-12, 07:54 PM

To get a continuity error like the Wall of the Faithless in 5e all you need is one person to misremember something, and one other person to not question the factoid and bother to double check.

And even more likely an error when the person doing the writing is not even part of the main dev team. That book was farmed out to Green Ronin. So you have a non-core-dev writing stuff, likely influenced strongly by earlier editions, without checking with the main team. Plus the usual error of the main team contact person not checking it even if the 3rd party does check in.

Telok

2020-11-13, 01:35 AM

Tabletop gaming developers are generally writers by training, not statisticians, mathematicians, or people in any other field with a high degree of numeric literacy. Heck, Gary Gygax's training as an insurance underwriter probably puts him well ahead of average in terms of mathematics training among TTRPG devs. Also...

This isn't stuff that needs a team of professional statisticians. You can wander down to a university coffee shop and get the analysis you need from a student half way through their first stats class. The coffee fund will cover the expense. It just takes someone caring enough to ask if the "easy" X successes before Y failures trial really is easier than the hard one.

Millstone85

2020-11-13, 05:13 AM

So, about this "Wall of Mirrors" that got mentioned several times in the thread.

From this fan wiki (https://forgottenrealms.fandom.com/wiki/Kelemvor):
The novel Crucible: The Trial of Cyric the Mad states that Kelemvor also replaced the Wall of the Faithless with a mirrored wall that showed the false and the faithless their reflections in such a way as to reveal the follies and life choices that led them to be sent to his realm. However, the more recent Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide sourcebook still describes faithless souls being mortared into the Wall for eternity.
Could it be that WotC simply fixed a continuity error? Or is the wiki wrong because the Wall of Mirrors was one of the changes Kelemvor had to undo?

Theoboldi

2020-11-13, 06:43 AM

So, about this "Wall of Mirrors" that got mentioned several times in the thread.

From this fan wiki (https://forgottenrealms.fandom.com/wiki/Kelemvor):
Could it be that WotC simply fixed a continuity error? Or is the wiki wrong because the Wall of Mirrors was one of the changes Kelemvor had to undo?

That novel did come out in 1998. From what I can tell after a bit of research, the Forgotten Realms Campaign setting from 2001 still mentions the Wall of the Faithless. (Dunno how things were in 4th edition.) So, either that is a long-lasting continuity error, or the Wall of Mirrors was retconned out.

Palanan

2020-11-13, 10:27 AM

Originally Posted by Theoboldi
...the Forgotten Realms Campaign setting from 2001 still mentions the Wall of the Faithless.

The Faithless are discussed in several paragraphs on p. 259 of the FRCS. The Wall isn't mentioned by name as "Wall of the Faithless," but the Faithless are described as forming "a living wall around the City of Judgment, held together by a supernatural greenish mold." The mold apparently immures them in the wall and eventually dissolves them into nothingness.

Theoboldi

2020-11-13, 10:33 AM

The Faithless are discussed in several paragraphs on p. 259 of the FRCS. The Wall isn't mentioned by name as "Wall of the Faithless," but the Faithless are described as forming "a living wall around the City of Judgment, held together by a supernatural greenish mold." The mold apparently immures them in the wall and eventually dissolves them into nothingness.

Sounds like not quite either, then? The Wall of the Faithless is supposed to be eternal, right?

Palanan

2020-11-13, 10:44 AM

Originally Posted by Theobaldi
Sounds like not quite either, then? The Wall of the Faithless is supposed to be eternal, right?

Not sure what you mean by "not quite either," since I'm just going with what I see on p. 259. The wall isn't formally named as the Wall of the Faithless here, and it's a little hazy on the timeframe. Here's what it says after mentioning the supernatural greenish mold:

"This mold prevents them from escaping the wall and eventually breaks down their substance until the soul and its consciousness are dissolved."

In this context, "eventually" could be centuries or millions of years, and it also doesn't really detail what they're dissolved into, since presumably this is spiritual substance we're talking about.

By contrast, the only direct mention of eternal punishment I see is for the False, who are a different category than the Faithless and not involved with the wall per se:

"The False are punished according to their crimes in life and serve their sentence in the City of Judgment for eternity."

So without reading this carefully, some people on the forums may be confusing the False and the Faithless, and may be assuming that the eternal punishments meted out to the False somehow apply to the Faithless as well. Again, I'm not familiar with the details of setting lore on this point, much less from other editions, so the wall may have been changed to an eternal sentence in some other source.