Concerns About the Progressions of the Goblin Plot (@Rich)

[Crusher]

The real d*ckishness is that since high-level souls are more valuable, they are inevitably going to breed conflict to get more.

I agree that's the real fly in the ointment. I wonder if that aspect is specific to the Stickverse or if its just a constant of their cosmology somehow. A world in which the gods got more power from whoever could make the biggest ball of twine would have some really different dynamics and be, probably, less cruel.

[masamune1]

If they need to eat you to survive, refusing to give yourself to them out of your own self-priority is not murder.

If someone is going to die unless they get an organ donation and you refuse to donate your organs to them and they die, that is not murder. That is having bodily autonomy and agency. This is the same with your faith/soul.

Indeed. A similar logic would apply to vampires or mind flayers "not letting them drink from (or implant) you" is not a bad thing. Even if it eventually results in extinction of vampires or mind flayers. Right to Autonomy overrides "right to survive".

Seems like a pretty uncharitable view of things.

Never got the impression that mortals died or ceased to exist by feeding the gods; I thought of it more as mortals being like the sun and the gods like plants.

Plus, without the gods, there may be no possibility of an afterlife for most beings, so it would actually be self-harm.

[hamishspence]

The process eventually causes mortal souls to lose all individual personality.

Because I am saying that is specifically what the afterlife does. It makes you into a cookie-cutter clone of everyone of the same alignment. It may take centuries to do so, but all the people at the top of the mountain? Completely indistinguishable from one another. Arguably, that is the purpose of the D&D afterlife—to turn flawed mortal souls into perfect alignment-batteries, through various methodologies. In the Nine Hells, they torture you until you forget everything else. In Celestia, you meditate until you renounce all worldly concerns. In Valhalla, you party until you can't remember your own name. In Limbo, the chaos drives you mad. In Mechanus, you sit in grey cubicle stamping paperwork until you are bored into oblivion. And so on and so forth.

I see it this way:
CG gods are those that advocate for organic and free range farms, but they are not vegetarian; they still eat you in the end .

Bingo.

And I presume everyone who has a moral problem with the gods using the mortal world to generate their sustenance will be going vegan now.

...

Folks, this is exactly how the afterlife has always worked in D&D; I've maybe tweaked some specifics, but the gist is the same. Souls go to the afterlife and eventually dissolve into the substance of the Outer Plane to which they are remanded, end of story. You don't have to like it or think it's fair, but it's how it works—because like my story, D&D needs the afterlife to not be Awesome Happy Fun Times Forever or else there's no logical underpinning for why the heroes should want to save the world from destruction.

[masamune1]

The process eventually causes mortal souls to lose all individual personality.

That's a function of the afterlife, not of the gods specifically.

If you got rid of the gods either the process would continue exactly as it is, or they would be no afterlife and mortal souls would just cease to exist upon death.

[Nephrahim]

Yeah but them dissolving is an aspect of the outer planes themselves, not something the Gods created, as I understand it. I feel like it's more a question of "You can't hold your individuality forever after you've lost your body and everything."

[hamishspence]

The gods need 4 things to thrive, and "souls powering the afterlives" is just one of the four.

https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots1144.html

[masamune1]

The gods need 4 things to thrive, and "souls powering the afterlives" is just one of the four.

https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots1144.html

Getting rid of the gods wouldn't change any of that. Mortals would still Believe, Worship, Dedicate and have Souls.

All that would differ is that their Beliefs and Worship and Dedication would have no effect and the Souls would either continue to their afterlives and dissolve as normal, or cease to exist upon death.

[Telenil]

I agree that's the real fly in the ointment. I wonder if that aspect is specific to the Stickverse or if its just a constant of their cosmology somehow. A world in which the gods got more power from whoever could make the biggest ball of twine would have some really different dynamics and be, probably, less cruel.

Yep. I've been wondering if the gods created the D&D-based laws of the universe, or if they are also bound by them. We know the previous worlds weren't all of the fantasy genre, but were there also classes and levels? Were they also based on a d20 system?

[hamishspence]

Mortals would still Believe, Worship, Dedicate and have Souls.

All that would differ is that their Beliefs and Worship and Dedication would have no effect and the Souls would either continue to their afterlives and dissolve as normal, or cease to exist upon death.

The Athar in Planescape don't believe in the gods as divinities (they see them as just powerful outsiders), worship them, etc.

So, if an Athar existed in OOTS, when they live no Belief would come off them, or Worship, and when they die, no Dedication would come off them either, because they don't have a patron god in the first place. The only thing that would be generated would be "powering the Outer Planes" when the Athar character goes to the plane appropriate to their alignment.

For an OOTS example, Gontor is pretty close - they might generate Belief, but they Worship no deity, and so are Dedicated to no deity. Their Dedication (to the cause "Stone") might instead power the many below-deity "Stone" elementals, outsiders, etc that grant them their clerical powers.

Because of the Special Agreement, if they died dishonourably, their Dedication would go to Hel despite not choosing Hel as a patron, but only because they're a Dwarf.

Gontor is not doing anything objectionable by choosing to contribute no Dedication to any god.

[masamune1]

Yep. I've been wondering if the gods created the D&D-based laws of the universe, or if they are also bound by them. Were there also classes and levels in the previous worlds? Were they also based on a d20 system?

There are multiple D&D universes that each have their own rules.

The main verse is Forgotten Realms, which is an elaborate multiverse created by the Overgod Ao, who created the first gods and determines what rules all deities have to follow, and can and does change them. Currently, most FR deities need worshippers for power and a total absence of worshippers can even cause a god to die; that, though, was a relatively recent change that Ao made in order to force the gods to take their worshippers more seriously.

Other verses, like Greyhawk or Ebberon, don't necessarily follow the FR origin story, although all D&D multiverses are connected.

In Dragonlance, deities do not depend on worshippers for power at all, except political influence etc

The idea that worship and dedication and souls are "food" for the gods seems to be an OotS invention, or at least interpretation.

[masamune1]

The Athar in Planescape don't believe in the gods as divinities (they see them as just powerful outsiders), worship them, etc.

So, if an Athar existed in OOTS, when they live no Belief would come off them, or Worship, and when they die, no Dedication would come off them either, because they don't have a patron god in the first place. The only thing that would be generated would be "powering the Outer Planes" when the Athar character goes to the plane appropriate to their alignment.

For an OOTS example, Gontor is pretty close - they might generate Belief, but they Worship no deity, and so are Dedicated to no deity. Their Dedication (to the cause "Stone") might instead power the many below-deity "Stone" elementals, outsiders, etc that grant them their clerical powers.

Because of the Special Agreement, if they died dishonourably, their Dedication would go to Hel despite not choosing Hel as a patron, but only because they're a Dwarf.

Gontor is not doing anything objectionable by choosing to contribute no Dedication to any god.

The point is that if the OotS gods ceased to exist, the Gontor and every other mortal would still go to their respective afterlives and eventually their personality would die as they already do, with the only difference being that the gods don't benefit.

[hamishspence]

The idea that worship and dedication and souls are "food" for the gods seems to be an OotS invention, or at least interpretation.

3.5e book Complete Divine

page 130: Join The Godhead: "Evil deities sometimes consume souls as if they were eating ordinary food"



(for nonevil deities, the idea is that the soul merges with the deity rather than being consumed in the most literal sense.)

[masamune1]

3.5e book Complete Divine

page 130: Join The Godhead: "Evil deities sometimes consume souls as if they were eating ordinary food"



(for nonevil deities, the idea is that the soul merges with the deity rather than being consumed in the most literal sense.)

I meant more in the sense of "need souls to survive".

Evil gods eating souls sounds more like d*ckishness.

[RossN]

The process eventually causes mortal souls to lose all individual personality.

Whoah...

I really, really wish I hadn't read that. I'm honestly not sure I can enjoy this comic anymore.

[masamune1]

Whoah...

I really, really wish I hadn't read that. I'm honestly not sure I can enjoy this comic anymore.

As The Giant said, that's basically how the afterlife in D&D works, but it can take years or centuries or millenia.

Though, he seems to be making / stressing more of an ecology of it. In D&D it can be (for the Neutral and Good aligned realms) more like "you've done everything you could possibly do in the afterlife" kind of deal.

[hamishspence]

I meant more in the sense of "need souls to survive".

"Need souls to increase in power" might be the usual thing in 3e and pre-3e material.

[Shadowknight12]

We also don't know if the gods created the afterlife system on purpose to work like that. It's possible that they didn't and are simply benefiting from how it already works, or they could have deliberately created it that way because they need it to work that way to survive. If the gods were the ones that created the Outer Planes, the outsiders and the way souls are handled, they could be the ones that created the entire system in the first place.

So far, we don't know for sure, but it would've been very easy for Thor to say "sorry Durkon, we didn't choose what happens to your soul when you die, we're just taking advantage of an already existent process" and yet he didn't. It's not solid incontrovertible proof, but I consider that enough weight to lead me (and me alone) towards believing the gods made the afterlife work this way on purpose.

[masamune1]

We also don't know if the gods created the afterlife system on purpose to work like that. It's possible that they didn't and are simply benefiting from how it already works, or they could have deliberately created it that way because they need it to work that way to survive. If the gods were the ones that created the Outer Planes, the outsiders and the way souls are handled, they could be the ones that created the entire system in the first place.

So far, we don't know for sure, but it would've been very easy for Thor to say "sorry Durkon, we didn't choose what happens to your soul when you die, we're just taking advantage of an already existent process" and yet he didn't. It's not solid incontrovertible proof, but I consider that enough weight to lead me (and me alone) towards believing the gods made the afterlife work this way on purpose.

Durkon wasn't really bothered by how the afterlife works. He's more upset by how the goblins got the short end of the stick.

Thor just didn't like how Durkon called it "food"; that doesn't mean that Durkon actually meant anything bad by that.

[Shadowknight12]

Durkon wasn't really bothered by how the afterlife works. He's more upset by how the goblins got the short end of the stick.

Thor just didn't like how Durkon called it "food"; that doesn't mean that Durkon actually meant anything bad by that.

He seems pretty disappointed with the entire system right here.

[masamune1]

He seems pretty disappointed with the entire system right here.

Well, okay, fair enough, but I think he was still stressing the Redcloak side of things. He goes on to complain about how bad it is for the goblins, not about how it is for everyone.

And his disappointment in the system is probably more of a faithful Cleric finding out that the meaning of life is something so mundane, not that he thinks feeding the gods is "bad" but that he wished there was more to it.

[Shadowknight12]

Well, okay, fair enough, but I think he was still stressing the Redcloak side of things. He goes on to complain about how bad it is for the goblins, not about how it is for everyone.

And his disappointment in the system is probably more of a faithful Cleric finding out that the meaning of life is something so mundane, not that he thinks feeding the gods is "bad" but that he wished there was more to it.

It could certainly be that, but I think this is one of the things where "only time will tell" since it means delving a bit deeper into Durkon's thoughts on the whole thing (and maybe the thoughts of other characters as well) and waiting for the Giant to further build on this information that has been introduced and see where the story takes it.

[Nephrahim]

I can see Durkon's disappointment though. As a good character, I feel like he's always felt that good people should do things just because they're right, regardless of it helps them or not. Now he knows that the gods NEED mortals to worship them, so suddenly all their actions are self-serving, even if they are generally good people who want what's best for their followers.

[Wizard_Lizard]

Honestly now I really want to make a BBEG who's plan is to destroy the world so that everyone can get their 'justice' (Going to the afterlife of their alignment) faster.

[Telenil]

I've checked the comics, the gods do believe more rifts will form over time. So you can't destroy them even if you wanted to. Or at least not until they have built a four-color prison around the Snarl.

There are multiple D&D universes that each have their own rules.

The main verse is Forgotten Realms, which is an elaborate multiverse created by the Overgod Ao, who created the first gods and determines what rules all deities have to follow, and can and does change them. Currently, most FR deities need worshippers for power and a total absence of worshippers can even cause a god to die; that, though, was a relatively recent change that Ao made in order to force the gods to take their worshippers more seriously.

Other verses, like Greyhawk or Ebberon, don't necessarily follow the FR origin story, although all D&D multiverses are connected.

In Dragonlance, deities do not depend on worshippers for power at all, except political influence etc

The idea that worship and dedication and souls are "food" for the gods seems to be an OotS invention, or at least interpretation.

Interesting. How do the Outer Planes work in a multiverse? Are they connected to multiple Material Planes, or does each Material world come with its own set of Outer Planes?

Whoah...

I really, really wish I hadn't read that. I'm honestly not sure I can enjoy this comic anymore.

It's better than death as instant-oblivion. You get to exist longer, and the eventual loss of your identity is just a different form of aging and dying. If anything, it's gentler (at least in Good planes) because it depends on your will to live rather than biological processes you have no control over. As others have said, this is how I always understood it to work because it's the way it works in D&D.

[GeoffWatson]

Interesting. How do the Outer Planes work in a multiverse? Are they connected to multiple Material Planes, or does each Material world come with its own set of Outer Planes?

Each of the settings has their own version of the outer planes in 3rd edition. OOTS uses the Greyhawk setting's outer planes (more or less), the Great Wheel, which were the "default" outer planes in 1st and 2nd ed.
There is some overlap - both Greyhawk and FR have the Abyss as a plane, but for Eberron "Shavarath the Eternal Battlefield" is the closest, as that's where Demons come from (as well as Devils, so it also is the Hells).

[Jason]

As The Giant said, that's basically how the afterlife in D&D works, but it can take years or centuries or millenia.

For some versions of D&D, yes this is how it works. Not necessarily for all of them. It's always been a rather obscure part of lore and not really a hard and fast rule.

It has not been stated in the comic that souls eventually lose their individuality and merge with the outer plane they've been assigned in Stickworld, so I don't consider that canon. Roy's Archon says that the goal of mortal souls there is to ascend the mountain and achieve "true perfect enlightenment." I suppose that could be a euphemism for "your final death as an individual as you merge into the plane," but that would seem to me to be rather deceptive for Lawful Good gods.

[KorvinStarmast]

The idea that worship and dedication and souls are "food" for the gods seems to be an OotS invention, or at least interpretation.

Not original. That idea has been around SF and Fantasy for a pretty long time. If I remember some of the pulp stories I read years ago (about deities fading or disappearing) it predated D&D's existence by some decades. I think I have an old Poul Anderson short story from the 50's that works on that theme, not sure what box in that attic that SF anthology is in.

I really, really wish I hadn't read that. I'm honestly not sure I can enjoy this comic anymore.

I came for the jokes, and the jokes are still there. The rest is someone's world building. I am used to every DM having a different cosmology. I am underwhelmed by the 'canon' cosmologies that have accumulated in various D&D editions; they are incoherent, when one looks at them in aggregate. (Well, the Dragonlance one is at least coherent, however much it's kinda lame).

As The Giant said, that's basically how the afterlife in D&D works, but it can take years or centuries or millenia.

Though, he seems to be making / stressing more of an ecology of it. In D&D it can be (for the Neutral and Good aligned realms) more like "you've done everything you could possibly do in the afterlife" kind of deal.

That's a neat take on it.

[dps]

Whoah...

I really, really wish I hadn't read that. I'm honestly not sure I can enjoy this comic anymore.

We can't get into it much here, but you do realize that there is 1 major real-life religion whose followers seek just that, don't you?

[Spartan360]

Really don't think that the god and mortal system should be changed aside from some possible appeasement for the TDO so the Snarl could be sealed. There is a much greater loss at doing something as silly as opposing the system where souls power instead of taking advantage of it. Clerics, certain afterlives and a new world (If the Snarl situation would go bad) are some of the things that the mortals get for following the gods. And there is no way that the Mortals would actually be able to deal with everything on their own.

[Kornaki]

For at least souls in the good plane, I interpreted the statement of them merging with the plane as reflecting the fact that mortals only require a finite set of experiences, after which their further existence holds no meaning to themselves so they just kind of stop existing as an individual. There are plenty of stories that show immortality to be a curse to make it seem at least reasonable to want a built in expiration when your own soul's immortality becomes a negative.