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

[Keltest]

@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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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.

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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.

But what of people who unknowingly benefit from evil deeds and what happens when they become aware of the truth? We’ve got everyone’s least favorite Omelas to consider.

Or to flip the context, deeds presumed evil that are actually good. Maybe too much of a tangent.

[Vahnavoi]

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]

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).

@Saint-just
God of Nature. Nice and generic, yeah? And thats the big thing with them.

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.

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.

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?

And your false example... why doesnt he just start worshiping Waukeen instead of Gond?

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?

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.

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.

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.

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?

[Keltest]

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]

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]

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)?

[GrayDeath]

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]

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:

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:

Spoiler

Show

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]

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)?

I believe AO showed up with the Time of Troubles adventures which ushered in the 1E->2E edition change. Just based on that, I assume it was just TSR coming up with a way to make the ToT happen, the gods have to go tramp around on Abeir-Toril, and the game designers getting to reset anything they wanted to change for the new game.

[Clistenes]

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]

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.

That said, maybe Bob 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...

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.

[PairO'Dice Lost]

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. )

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]

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

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.

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 myth

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.

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]

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]

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]

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]

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."

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.

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.