Runa_Dacino
2022-08-30, 04:32 AM
Hello!
The Planescape sourcebooks describe afterlife as a pretty horrendous ordeal - you are cleansed of your identity, your memories, your very sense of self and turn into a petitioner. That petitioner is then molded by whatever plane they exist upon. In Planescape, there might as well be no afterlife.
In Forgotten Realms, I only know of a few explicit examples regarding identity:
Oghma/House of Knowledge: Identity, sense of self is eradicated. Memories in form of skills are retained so that you may write books about them, but without emotional context of why or how you learned them. A pretty... abysmal existence in my opinion.
Seldarine/Arvandor/Arvanaith: Identity, sense of self & memories are retained in full. Personality is adjusted by having all emotions feel more intense, more colourful - but it's still you. According to Ed Greenwood on Twitter, even Sehanine reincarnation does not wipe this: you cannot access your full identity/memories after being reincarnated, but it informs your actions as a mortal before you return to Arvandor again. However, Ed Greenwood's post is not specific to 3.5E, and for 3.5E we only have 2E and 3.5E lore to cite directly - where we only know of Reincarnation for elves being a thing (or rather, something followers of Sehanine/Angharradh may believe in). Still, I'll more than happily consider Ed Greenwood's little twitter reply to be applicable for 3.5E, considering there's no reason for why the Seldarine would change between 1300s and 1400s.
Valkur/Selune/Sune/Halfling Pantheon: Nothing explicit is mentioned about Identity, Sense of self. I'd argue, because they are Chaotic Good Deities - their afterlife ought to be similar to the Seldarine and Arvandor - since Chaotic Good is specifically about respecting Individualism, celebrating the unique nature of each and every entity, finding harmony and strength in their differences, collaborating and helping each other to let others fully express themselves. Selune in specific mentions that her plane affects the petitioners by making their moods/emotions mercurial - following phases of the moon. This does not seem entirely contradictory to the way Arvandor is described.
Tempus's realm is described as an eternal battle field. Valkur's is similar, albeit for ships to sail and maybe fight. I can't see a reason why Tempus, as CN, would wipe identity and individuality either.
For Lawful Neutral deities, we can probably extrapolate Oghma to be generally applicable in vibes.
This leaves Lawful Good, Neutral Good, True Neutral, and evil alignments as non-specified. For Evil, best I know of would be the Lower Planes, which mean identity death.
Do you agree with my assesment on CG/CN? Do you by chance have official lore, sourcebooks for 2E/3.5E that is Forgotten-Realms specific concerning what life is like as a petitioner? Would you accept Ed Greenwood's twitter posts as a source of lore?
The Planescape sourcebooks describe afterlife as a pretty horrendous ordeal - you are cleansed of your identity, your memories, your very sense of self and turn into a petitioner. That petitioner is then molded by whatever plane they exist upon. In Planescape, there might as well be no afterlife.
In Forgotten Realms, I only know of a few explicit examples regarding identity:
Oghma/House of Knowledge: Identity, sense of self is eradicated. Memories in form of skills are retained so that you may write books about them, but without emotional context of why or how you learned them. A pretty... abysmal existence in my opinion.
Seldarine/Arvandor/Arvanaith: Identity, sense of self & memories are retained in full. Personality is adjusted by having all emotions feel more intense, more colourful - but it's still you. According to Ed Greenwood on Twitter, even Sehanine reincarnation does not wipe this: you cannot access your full identity/memories after being reincarnated, but it informs your actions as a mortal before you return to Arvandor again. However, Ed Greenwood's post is not specific to 3.5E, and for 3.5E we only have 2E and 3.5E lore to cite directly - where we only know of Reincarnation for elves being a thing (or rather, something followers of Sehanine/Angharradh may believe in). Still, I'll more than happily consider Ed Greenwood's little twitter reply to be applicable for 3.5E, considering there's no reason for why the Seldarine would change between 1300s and 1400s.
Valkur/Selune/Sune/Halfling Pantheon: Nothing explicit is mentioned about Identity, Sense of self. I'd argue, because they are Chaotic Good Deities - their afterlife ought to be similar to the Seldarine and Arvandor - since Chaotic Good is specifically about respecting Individualism, celebrating the unique nature of each and every entity, finding harmony and strength in their differences, collaborating and helping each other to let others fully express themselves. Selune in specific mentions that her plane affects the petitioners by making their moods/emotions mercurial - following phases of the moon. This does not seem entirely contradictory to the way Arvandor is described.
Tempus's realm is described as an eternal battle field. Valkur's is similar, albeit for ships to sail and maybe fight. I can't see a reason why Tempus, as CN, would wipe identity and individuality either.
For Lawful Neutral deities, we can probably extrapolate Oghma to be generally applicable in vibes.
This leaves Lawful Good, Neutral Good, True Neutral, and evil alignments as non-specified. For Evil, best I know of would be the Lower Planes, which mean identity death.
Do you agree with my assesment on CG/CN? Do you by chance have official lore, sourcebooks for 2E/3.5E that is Forgotten-Realms specific concerning what life is like as a petitioner? Would you accept Ed Greenwood's twitter posts as a source of lore?