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

[hamishspence]

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:

Spoiler

Show

"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]

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, which goes on to specify that the Faithless and the False are only those who denied the gods or betrayed them.

[noob]

From Ed Greenwood Presents The Forgotten Realms:

Spoiler

Show

"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]

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]

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]

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]

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.

[hamishspence]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

I was under the impression, perhaps very very mistaken, that Lathander or Selûne 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.

Selûne, 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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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.

I mean, that's an easy circle to square: the home invasion, murderhobo PCs are also "good" - we're just using really strange definitions of the terms (because, yes, everyone is clearly "evil").

[LibraryOgre]

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]

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 is somebody who deals in tin plate or tinware. Specifically, an itinerant mender of household utensils.

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]

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.

[Lord Raziere]

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]

A tinker or tinsmith is somebody who deals in tin plate or tinware. Specifically, an itinerant mender of household utensils.

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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:

1. 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.
2. 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.