Chaotic Evil afterlife

[Thrudh]

So, wouldn't Belkar ENJOY the Chaotic Evil afterlife??

Would they tortue him, or reward him for all his evil work while alive?

(He might dinged for not doing ENOUGH evil, while spending all that time with the OOTS)

[Assassin89]

I doubt that Belkar will be rewarded in the Chaotic Evil afterlife. It could be big on irony there (http://www.nuklearpower.com/daily.php?date=040224)

[DreadSpoon]

In the general D&D 3.5 cosmology, Evil is not punished in the afterlife, nor is Good particularly rewarded. The spirit merely goes to join in the domain of its patron deity or aligned plane, eventually to merge into and become a part of that deity/plane. In some settings, it is merely the unfaithful or agnostic who are punished. In other settings, dead mortals become the servants of their patron gods (or native Outsiders of their aligned planes), which generally are quite happy to do what they do.

It's true that what happens in OOTS-verse is completely unknown to us. However, we do know that it is highly unlikely that Evil will be punished in the afterlife in any well-designed D&D-style setting. In a world where there is living, walking, talking proof that the gods and the afterlife exist, and where people can travel to and from the afterlife with a mere spell, there is no question to any mortal about what happens when he or she dies. No person would willingly subscribe to an Evil lifestyle if they knew as absolute fact that there awaited some form of eternal punishment for doing so.

One can be almost positive that in the Chaotic Evil afterlife characters like Belkar get to do whatever they want to whomever they want. There is probably an infinite supply of easily-terrorized regular folk that exist solely to scream in agony as they're hacked to bits, just like the Lawful Good afterlife has an infinite supply of one-night stands (which I'm guessing probably exist in every version of the afterlife... it's not a particularly Lawful concept to my mind, at least).

[Scarlet Knight]

Ah! The sweet after-life for Belkar! Plenty of creatures to stab, lots of screaming, & setting things on fire. Plenty of opportunity to elude stronger, more evil beings. Rape, pillage, & plunder ... or for variety: plunder, pillage, and rape...infinite supply of one-night stands with paladins who then promptly fall. Yo ho ho, for the rotten life!

[Evil DM Mark3]

In many (most?) DnD settings the afterlife alters your soul sloly until you become an outsider. For example in Baator (the LE afterlife) you are tortured and made to suffer to harvest energy from until you are a formless, memoryless, mindless blob.

Then you become a Lemur (sp?) and start to climb the evil ladder.

[King of Nowhere]

I think in the CE afterlife you just take what you want with strength.
So Belkar will be very fine.
Evil people hope to be the stronger, so they will be fine in their afterlife.

While LE afterlife would be ruled by a mafia-like sistem, and by scheming you can go to the top, where you will be fine.

Both places, the subordinate ranks sucks totally.

At least, that's the way I imagine it.

[Optimystik]

Hamish and others with the books have posted this repeatedly: Belkar would cease to be Belkar not long after arriving there, gradually become an outsider, turn into a mane etc.

It makes sense for evil afterlives to not be fun places; if they were, there'd be no reason for evil organizations like cults or the RWoT to want to stick around on the Prime Material. The whole idea behind seeking worldly power and immortality/hell on earth/bringing powerful demons here to this plane is that your deity's home plane is a really, really sucky place to end up.

[Warlord JK]

Hamish and others with the books have posted this repeatedly: Belkar would cease to be Belkar not long after arriving there, gradually become an outsider, turn into a mane etc.

It makes sense for evil afterlives to not be fun places; if they were, there'd be no reason for evil organizations like cults or the RWoT to want to stick around on the Prime Material. The whole idea behind seeking worldly power and immortality/hell on earth/bringing powerful demons here to this plane is that your deity's home plane is a really, really sucky place to end up.

My thoughts exactly.

[golentan]

Reading this discussion, I can't help think of this (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=syh1aUW2gdw). The quality is terrible, but you get the idea.

[Optimystik]

Reading this discussion, I can't help think of this (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=syh1aUW2gdw). The quality is terrible, but you get the idea.

Was that... a Youtube... of a Youtube? You just blew my mind man!

(I love the death scene at the end. "OH!" *slumps*)

[FujinAkari]

Hamish and others with the books have posted this repeatedly: Belkar would cease to be Belkar not long after arriving there, gradually become an outsider, turn into a mane etc.

The problem with this argument is that it doesn't leave room for Resurrection. If Belkar stops being Belkar, how can he be risen from the dead?

[Optimystik]

The problem with this argument is that it doesn't leave room for Resurrection. If Belkar stops being Belkar, how can he be risen from the dead?

That's one of the reasons there is a time limit on revivals, and the reason I qualified my earlier post with "not long." If you wait too long (particularly for Raise Dead) the soul becomes an outsider and forgets everything about its life on the PM. Belkar losing his identity would be a gradual, but certain, process.

[zillion ninjas]

just like the Lawful Good afterlife has an infinite supply of one-night stands (which I'm guessing probably exist in every version of the afterlife... it's not a particularly Lawful concept to my mind, at least).

The guilt (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0492.html) is the Lawful part.

[Corwin Weber]

See, the problem is that we tend to think of things from the perspective of.... well what Christians would call Heaven and Hell. AD&D doesn't really work that way. The evil afterlife in D&D isn't technically a punishment, since it's actually a pretty cool place.... if you're tough enough and cruel enough to take what you want.

....otherwise.... well.... you kinda..... erm..... how do I put this delicately......

Ok.... forget delicately. How do I put this in PG forum terms.....

Well this isn't how I normally put it.... but you end up low man on the totem pole.

In a forest full of beavers.

And dogs. (Think about it.)

Now, Belkar may be nasty enough to make it work.... but the Abyss is just chock full of people like Belkar from all kinds of worlds. He might be tough and nasty enough to rise to the top.... but..... erm.... statistically speaking?

....well let's put it this way. The gates of Hell in D&D don't have 'Abandon Hope, All Ye Who Enter Here' engraved on them. It's more like..... 'Welcome to Oz.'

[Zeful]

That's one of the reasons there is a time limit on revivals, and the reason I qualified my earlier post with "not long." If you wait too long (particularly for Raise Dead) the soul becomes an outsider and forgets everything about its life on the PM. Belkar losing his identity would be a gradual, but certain, process.

Explain True Resurrection then. It's possible to raise someone over one hundred years old with that spell. If the person is turned into an outsider than how can they be Truely Resurrected?

[The Extinguisher]

Would they tortue him, or reward him for all his evil work while alive?

Sure, you spent your life spreading evil and destroying good, but what have you done for Asmodeus lately?

Sure, that's technically lawful, but it applies.

[Optimystik]

Explain True Resurrection then. It's possible to raise someone over one hundred years old with that spell. If the person is turned into an outsider than how can they be Truely Resurrected?

If you read the description, TR can and will raise Outsiders. Belkar would still have the chance to refuse, of course.

[Calavera]

Explain True Resurrection then. It's possible to raise someone over one hundred years old with that spell. If the person is turned into an outsider than how can they be Truely Resurrected?

It's a level 9 spell. Effectively the same power as Wish, but limited in scope. I can see reverting an outsider to mortal and then resurrecting her as being about that kind of power.

[FujinAkari]

If you read the description, TR can and will raise Outsiders. Belkar would still have the chance to refuse, of course.

True, but the point is... if Belkar stopped being Belkar, how the heck is True Resurrection resurrecting him?

[Weiser_Cain]

Heaven for climate, Hell for companionship.
Mark Twain

[FrankNorman]

So, wouldn't Belkar ENJOY the Chaotic Evil afterlife??

Would they tortue him, or reward him for all his evil work while alive?

(He might dinged for not doing ENOUGH evil, while spending all that time with the OOTS)

Rewarding (or punishing) someone for their actions is a Lawful concept.
The Abyss is supposed to be a place of Chaotic Evil. They don't "do" Justice, Fairness, or Rewarding down there.
They do evil. Doing good to Belkar because of all the evil he did to others would not be in their nature.

[Underground]

This is all pure speculation. There isnt much said about the afterlife in the three core rulebooks - Player Handbook, Dungeon Master Guide, and Monster Manual. And everything else depends upon the setting.

OOTS is both not always following the core rulebooks (Settings like the Forgotten Realms modify them too, though) and is placed in a setting of its own. Therefore really anything can happen to Belkar in the CE afterlife.

I think its very obvious, though, that Belkars afterlife wont be fun.

[KillianHawkeye]

In many (most?) DnD settings the afterlife alters your soul sloly until you become an outsider. For example in Baator (the LE afterlife) you are tortured and made to suffer to harvest energy from until you are a formless, memoryless, mindless blob.

Then you become a Lemur (sp?) and start to climb the evil ladder.

You become a Lemur???
http://intelligenttravel.typepad.com/photos/uncategorized/2008/04/17/wild_lemur.jpg


I think you meant a Lemure (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/devil.htm#lemure). :smallamused::smallamused:

[rayne_dragon]

You become a Lemur???
http://intelligenttravel.typepad.com/photos/uncategorized/2008/04/17/wild_lemur.jpg


I think you meant a Lemure (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/devil.htm#lemure). :smallamused::smallamused:

Well, it would be a friendish Lemur, obviously. You have to earn the extra E. :smalltongue:

[The Glyphstone]

No, he got it right (http://ww2.wizards.com/gatherer/CardDetails.aspx?&id=2457).

[hamishspence]

Books on subject for The Great Wheel (the generic D&D planes, described, but in not much detail in 3.5) are Deities & Demigods, + Complete Divine for Souls and Afterlife.

Abyss and Nine Hells are covered in much more detail in Fiendish Codex 1 and Fiendish Codex 2.

In general, The Lower Planes tend to be somewhat unpleasant for souls consigned to them. Novels describing them suggest that planes like Gehenna or Hades are not exactly pleasant for petitioners either- souls of those who bargained with Yugoloths being strung out on spiked chains miles in length.

Faerun deities, even evil ones, might be a bit less brutal to their petitioners, but in general, the best one can hope for is early promotion to powerful outsider rank.

[Scarlet Knight]

Well, it would be a friendish Lemur, obviously. You have to earn the extra E. :smalltongue:

Well, I always thought Zoboomafoo was a cute little devil....wait, that would be the LE afterlife then....:smallconfused:

[Optimystik]

True, but the point is... if Belkar stopped being Belkar, how the heck is True Resurrection resurrecting him?

As was mentioned before, we're dealing with a 9th level spell - the divine energies involved are enormous, and outclass both Wish and Miracle when it comes to reviving the dead. More to the point, however, keep in mind that TR can revive someone that has been utterly erased from existence. It is not just the soul's, but also the CLERIC'S concept of that person's identity that matters to TR, which is why identifying the deceased so precisely is an important component of the spell.

Now, suppose Belkar has been utterly subsumed into the Abyss and he has become an outsider. His soul, on some infinitesimal metaphysical level that he cannot consciously access, retains that knowledge of who he is. It is the spark, and True Resurrection represents the divine Fan that rekindles it to the flame of life.



I waxed a bit poetic there, but I didn't want to just leave it at "It's a 9th level spell, they break the rules!" even though that's really the only answer I needed to give. Remember, the definition of an outsider is a being whose soul and body are one entity, as opposed to the binary existence of a native. The fact that True Resurrection can still revive them indicates it has the power to recreate a soul, not merely call it back like the lesser revival powers. It really is in a class by itself as far as magic goes.

[hamishspence]

it breaks down at the Sphere of Annihilation level- it can't, in fact, recreate a destroyed soul.

Even a damaged soul may have a 50% chance of being unressurrectable- barghests do this to souls- leaving a damaged soul in the afterlife.

Complete Divine explained why it brings back outsiders: "their souls dissolve rapidly into the plane, and the spell sifts through the plane, reconstituting the soul"

[Optimystik]

it breaks down at the Sphere of Annihilation level- it can't, in fact, recreate a destroyed soul.

Even a damaged soul may have a 50% chance of being unressurrectable- barghests do this to souls- leaving a damaged soul in the afterlife.

Complete Divine explained why it brings back outsiders: "their souls dissolve rapidly into the plane, and the spell sifts through the plane, reconstituting the soul"

Ah, thanks for the clarification. This explanation fits my hypothesis of what would happen to Belkar (and the reason TR would still work on him) even better.

[hamishspence]

As a Soul-Eating monster, I suspect The Snarl is at the Sphere level or even higher- deities can raise people from Death By Sphere even if their clerics can't, but going by phrased used about The Snarl in SoD, they might not be able to do that for those killed by it "Worse Than Dead"

Very few effects in D&D make you Unresurrectable Even By Greater Deities, but I suspect that in Stickverse, The Snarl may be one.

[TreesOfDeath]

I dont know what the snarl has to do with this thread, but the Snarl perma kills because it devours the soul.

The CE afterlife is liekly a hellish and brutal place that belkar would enjoy because he is so brutal and twisted. Or Rich will anticipate us antipcating this and throw a curveball like he always does

[Kish]

That's one of the reasons there is a time limit on revivals, and the reason I qualified my earlier post with "not long." If you wait too long (particularly for Raise Dead) the soul becomes an outsider and forgets everything about its life on the PM. Belkar losing his identity would be a gradual, but certain, process.
Given that the time limit is entirely dependent on the level of the caster and the specific spell being used--neither of which is a quality of the dead person--I doubt memory loss in the afterlife has anything to do with it.

[dps]

Well, it would be a friendish Lemur, obviously. You have to earn the extra E. :smalltongue:

"Friendish"? Does this have something to do with Courtney Cox?

[FrankNorman]

As a Soul-Eating monster, I suspect The Snarl is at the Sphere level or even higher- deities can raise people from Death By Sphere even if their clerics can't, but going by phrased used about The Snarl in SoD, they might not be able to do that for those killed by it "Worse Than Dead"

Very few effects in D&D make you Unresurrectable Even By Greater Deities, but I suspect that in Stickverse, The Snarl may be one.

This sounds like its blurring the line between bringing the person back (from somewhere) and recreating them from scratch, using stored information about them.
In the one case its numerically the same individual, in the other its technically a duplicate.

[Optimystik]

Given that the time limit is entirely dependent on the level of the caster and the specific spell being used--neither of which is a quality of the dead person--I doubt memory loss in the afterlife has anything to do with it.

The level of the caster is what powers the chosen spell. The degree of afterlife assimilation - a direct effect of being dead for a period of time - is what necessitates those levels of power being necessary.

As an analogy, imagine you are a sniper and your target is on a train heading away from you. The longer you wait to take the shot, the further away they get, and thus the more powerful the gun you will need to still be able to hit them.

This analogy is especially useful because it explains why Raise Dead can be weaker than Resurrection, and weaker still than True Resurrection. The body stores memories (as evidenced by Speak With Dead), and so having it or a piece of it means less energy is required to dig that information out of the steadily transforming soul.

[King of Nowhere]

I don't think the giant is using that kind of afterlife for oots. Roy's grandpa is been dead for a good bunch of decades, but he's not showing any sign of assimilation or something. I don't see why the evil afterlife should be different.

[Querzis]

The thing is: You lose all your levels when you die (or you're supposed to). The only way someone can enjoy himself in the afterlife is if hes the one strong enough to torture and stab everyone instead of being the one who get tortured and stabbed...and since mortal who die start as lemures, you're sure to get tortured by everyone else for a long time before you're strong enough to handle your own in the abyss.

Belkar is no exceptions. Sure, the evil afterlife arent really punishment in D&D or at least, they arent meant to. But imagine a plane filled with people as nasty and cruel as Belkar or Xykon. Even if they arent meant to be a punishment, it doesnt change the fact that a plane where everyone wanna torture and kill everyone will be a billions time more unpleasant then a plane where there is only good people.

Edit: King of nowhere, its basically said in the strip to you become one with the plane when you get to the top of the mountain. This is the eternal afterlife, a few decade is absolutely nothing. Give it a few hundred years and Roy grandad will become an angel or an archon.

[Kish]

This analogy is especially useful because it explains why Raise Dead can be weaker than Resurrection, and weaker still than True Resurrection.
But there is no need for more explanation there than, "If you have trouble with the idea of a fifth-level spell being weaker than a seventh-level one, you're playing the wrong game."

I think we're unlikely to agree here.

[Optimystik]

I don't think the giant is using that kind of afterlife for oots. Roy's grandpa is been dead for a good bunch of decades, but he's not showing any sign of assimilation or something. I don't see why the evil afterlife should be different.

Ah, but he is. He's starting to understand how Celestia works, and has no desire to come back or even pay much attention to the Prime Material anymore. When he ascends that mountain, you can bet there'll be no turning back.


The thing is: You lose all your levels when you die (or you're supposed to).

If that was true in OotS-land, Roy would have had no chance vs. the Evil Adventuring Party and Eugene would have no way to use his powers.


But there is no need for more explanation there than, "If you have trouble with the idea of a fifth-level spell being weaker than a seventh-level one, you're playing the wrong game."

I think we're unlikely to agree here.

Perhaps not. The way I see it, you're seeing the trees and missing the forest. WHY is one spell higher than the other? Simple answer: it uses more divine energy. But what does it use that energy for? THAT'S what my post was attempting to explain. I could be wrong - resurrection could just need more power so that it can reconstitute the corpse from small remains - but that doesn't explain how TR can recreate a fallen companion from essentially nothing at all. And I already explained that I could have left the answer at "9th level spell, reality need not apply"; I just didn't want to.

[David Argall]

I don't think the giant is using that kind of afterlife for oots. Roy's grandpa is been dead for a good bunch of decades, but he's not showing any sign of assimilation or something. I don't see why the evil afterlife should be different.

Grandpa comes down from third level, where newbies like Roy don't go. So he is assimilating.

[Optimystik]

Not to revive a fully-discussed topic, but just wanted to add Roy's Archon's thoughts on assimilation here (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0493.html) - Souls get "bored" with earthly pleasures after around 30 or 40 years and then start climbing to the higher levels of the mountain.