OOTS #1260 - The Discussion Thread

[Fyraltari]

I agree with the whole "the universe does a kind of quick and dirty estimate until it's time to do a proper review" theory, but I think all the planes have to do a proper review regardless of alignment because they metaphysically couldn't take in someone who's not a match. Otherwise, the "good" planes would be unspeakably cruel by sending someone to the bad afterlives and very dumb to pass up useful soul-energy and delivering it to their ennemies/competition.

[Eric the White]

I agree with the whole "the universe does a kind of quick and dirty estimate until it's time to do a proper review" theory, but I think all the planes have to do a proper review regardless of alignment because they metaphysically couldn't take in someone who's not a match. Otherwise, the "good" planes would be unspeakably cruel by sending someone to the bad afterlives and very dumb to pass up useful soul-energy and delivering it to their ennemies/competition.

Yes, the good care about that sort of thing. I'll bet the evil doesnt. They'll go ahead and take a edge case and take the power and frankly be a bit gleeful that they got away with something.

[Fyraltari]

Yes, the good care about that sort of thing. I'll bet the evil doesnt. They'll go ahead and take a edge case and take the power and frankly be a bit gleeful that they got away with something.

So you think the good planes are being unnecessarily cruel and giving themselves a disadvantage? Why?

[Grey_Wolf_c]

So you think the good planes are being unnecessarily cruel and giving themselves a disadvantage? Why?

More likely, they have to be stricter than the Evil planes because they probably get a lot more people that think they are good, but in fact have lead rather anodyne, petty lives that land them more in the neutral bag. Few people actually think of themselves as Evil, after all ("everyone is the hero of their own story" and all that). And because I'd imagine that accepting a soul whose alignment doesn't work is a waste*, the Good afterlives have to be more thorough, whilst the Evil ones just have to send back up the (presumably far smaller number of) people who somehow think themselves Evil even though they are actually Neutral (or in some extreme cases Good but brown beaten into thinking they aren't - sad, not unheard of, but not the masses of, say, racist people who think themselves Good because they are better than those people of a different complexion).

Grey Wolf

*Headcanon: it takes a small amount of energy to process soul energy, but that energy feeds its alignment plane regardless of who process it, so an Evil plane doesn't want to waste any energy processing a soul just to watch the energy end up in the Neutral plane where they should have sent the soul to start with

[Fyraltari]

More likely, they have to be stricter than the Evil planes because they probably get a lot more people that think they are good, but in fact have lead rather anodyne, petty lives that land them more in the neutral bag. Few people actually think of themselves as Evil, after all ("everyone is the hero of their own story" and all that). And because I'd imagine that accepting a soul whose alignment doesn't work is a waste, the Good afterlives have to be more thorough, whilst the Evil ones just have to send back up the (presumably far smaller number of) people who somehow think themselves Evil even though they are actually Neutral (or in some extreme cases Good but brown beaten into thinking they aren't - sad, not unheard of, but not the masses of, say, racist people who think themselves Good because they are better than those people of a different complexion).

Grey Wolf

The argument wasn't whether one side has to deal with this more often than the other, though, it was whether all the sides actually do this or whether the Evil side (and presumably some of the neutral ones) just let in whomever.

[brian 333]

So you think the good planes are being unnecessarily cruel and giving themselves a disadvantage? Why?

Good, especially Lawful Good, always takes one for the team.

But Thor's Lawful worshippers go to Asgard which is anything but Lawful, and it doesn't appear to bother anyone. Why should an Evil deity care what alignment shows up on its doorstep? After a few million lashings with firey whips, the non-evils will gladly take a turn at being the lasher. Eventually, administering regularly scheduled lashings will be the least sucky part of the day. And then the souls won't be the wrong alignment and the plane can begin to absorb them.

[Grey_Wolf_c]

The argument wasn't whether one side has to deal with this more often than the other, though, it was whether all the sides actually do this or whether the Evil side (and presumably some of the neutral ones) just let in whomever.

I know? I was just kinda agreeing with you, but explaining why Evil might be less strict in their procedures without them taking in Neutral souls that don't belong to them.

Or in short, I as going off on a tangent. See also the late addition footnote

GW

[Psyren]

It's also possible that the soldiers are being sent to Lee's inbox after they've gone through the review.

That's what the first part of that sentence was meant to represent.

[dancrilis]

Keep in mind, I do have a theory in which the universe eyeballs alignment and calls it a day during life, and only when one gets to the afterlife to the kitty gritty details get sorted out. The universe likely saw Roy as probably Good so he went to Celestia, where he wanted to go, and where they put his life under a microscope and almost called him True Neutral. That review is unnecessary if living alignment is 100% accurate. Even if Roy was Neutral, he thought he was Good, the universe thought he was Good, and he got to interview at the Good afterlife.

I think, for example, this same scenario happened with Miko and all the rest of the Azurites. I do not think, for example, that Belkar might get to see the glades of Arborea if he had died in the war, and would have been dumped straight to the Abyss files.

Fair enough in general but I will challenge this.

That review is unnecessary if living alignment is 100% accurate.

There would still be a point to having the review.

Lets say Roy was actually Neutral - doing the review helps him know what he could do better to be Lawful Good should he return to life, and thereby a net positive for the forces of law and good.
Lets say Roy was actually Lawful Good but dangerously close to that corner that attaches to Neutral - doing the review helps him know where he is slipping up on his lawful and good behaviour.

It benefits the Lawful Good planes to help people who want to be Lawful Good to actually be Lawful Good (or to be Lawful Good better).

Why should an Evil deity care what alignment shows up on its doorstep?

Think of it like a hostage exchange.
GroupA is LG and GroupB is CE.

Many people who should belong to GroupB somehow manage to end up in GroupA and very few people who are in GroupA end up sorted to GroupB.
GroupB has an interest in getting all its people because they represent power.
GroupA has an interest in getting all its people because leaving them to suffer goes against their very nature.

GroupA and GroupB agree to trade each others people on mass to each other.
GroupA thereby saves all their people without any effort.
GroupB ends up with more people it can use as a resource without any effort.

Both sides end up with what they want.

If GroupB breaks the agreement then GroupA might withhold the incorrectly sorted people on their end which hurts GroupB much more then it helps them.

[Mic_128]

1) "Get back to work, and tell my assistant I said 'don't screw this up'" is not a whole lot in the way of "encouragement."

No, I said he encouraged Jirix.

[Eric the White]

So you think the good planes are being unnecessarily cruel and giving themselves a disadvantage? Why?

It sounds both good and lawful to me that they would want only Lawful Good people in the afterlife Roy experienced. After all one of the defining characteristics of that alignment is that your actions and intentions matter. I'm not sure how they are being cruel by correctly classifying everyone. We know for a fact that it is possible however that some souls do in fact get misclassified. We have seen both honorable dwarves that were in Hel's realm and we've seen clearly dishonorable ones released. Therefore I think that the reason good is more "exclusive" is because they consider their afterlife a reward that gets protected. The evil gods don't feel the same way likely. Evil people don't get to go to an evil paradise. They go to a place that renders them down into pure evil power through horrific means.

[Grey_Wolf_c]

We know for a fact that it is possible however that some souls do in fact get misclassified.

The whole business with Hel has nothing to do with the classification; it happens before the classification, due to The Bet. She gets all dwarven souls, regardless of alignment, other than honourable deaths, in exchange for not having a living priesthood, meaning that because nobody worships her, no soul ever ends in her domain because of it. Souls that are agreed died honourably then get to go to the judgement. The souls that stay with Hel are not "misclassified", they are pre-classified.

GW

[danielxcutter]

There’s a type of demon called a wrackspawn that’s created by torturing Good souls until they become insane, so I don’t think the lower planes are all that picky.

[brian 333]

...due to The Bet. She gets all dwarven souls, regardless of alignment, other than honourable deaths, in exchange for not having a living priesthood, meaning that because nobody worships her, no soul ever ends in her domain because of it...

Yet Hel says she occasionally tries to give cleric levels to intelligent undead, which are consequently destroyed by adventurers. She must, therefore, have some worshippers, however few they may be.

I theorized that because undead are within her portfolio, intelligent undead of Northern origin are hers by default. Let's say it was not the most popular of theories.

[Peelee]

Yet Hel says she occasionally tries to give cleric levels to intelligent undead, which are consequently destroyed by adventurers. She must, therefore, have some worshippers, however few they may be.

I theorized that because undead are within her portfolio, intelligent undead of Northern origin are hers by default. Let's say it was not the most popular of theories.

She has no living worshippers. Undead are not killed. They are destroyed. They cannot be brought back. They do not have souls that go to her when slain. She creates some of the undead, but that's meaningless regarding her obtaining souls, which are all mortal.

[Eric the White]

The whole business with Hel has nothing to do with the classification; it happens before the classification, due to The Bet. She gets all dwarven souls, regardless of alignment, other than honourable deaths, in exchange for not having a living priesthood, meaning that because nobody worships her, no soul ever ends in her domain because of it. Souls that are agreed died honourably then get to go to the judgement. The souls that stay with Hel are not "misclassified", they are pre-classified.

GW

What does the fact that it's a bet have to do with anything? Its just one of the rules for this world. There was a world where the worst sin was to leave your enemies remains on the theatre seats. Easy to imagine other worlds where all of the lawful good adventurers get sent to Hel (Hell? TM?) because they engaged in a lot of extra-judicial killing which is an evil act. There are a set of rules that define who goes where (more or less) and the bet is part of them this time. Consequently all dwarfs go to Hel, unless they die "honorably" which is shown to be highly open to interpretation. The good realms are shown specifically to care about what your intent is, and the evil realms are shown specifically to at least accept souls that don't seem to belong there.

[Psyren]

No, I said he encouraged Jirix.

So did I

I theorized that because undead are within her portfolio, intelligent undead of Northern origin are hers by default. Let's say it was not the most popular of theories.

Undead are hers while they're on the Material. Once destroyed they revert to being what they were.

[Ruck]

only when one gets to the afterlife to the kitty gritty details get sorted out.

I believe only the Beastlands deal with those.

I'd bet a number of Azure City paladins have experience dealing with the kitty gritty.

[Grey_Wolf_c]

What does the fact that it's a bet have to do with anything? Its just one of the rules for this world. There was a world where the worst sin was to leave your enemies remains on the theatre seats. Easy to imagine other worlds where all of the lawful good adventurers get sent to Hel (Hell? TM?) because they engaged in a lot of extra-judicial killing which is an evil act. There are a set of rules that define who goes where (more or less) and the bet is part of them this time. Consequently all dwarfs go to Hel, unless they die "honorably" which is shown to be highly open to interpretation. The good realms are shown specifically to care about what your intent is, and the evil realms are shown specifically to at least accept souls that don't seem to belong there.

It has to do with the fact that The Bet has nothing to do with sin, judgment, rules or anything else your logic relies on. For everyone but the dwarves, nothing matters except which of the nine alignment boxes they fall in according to the universe. Not where they belong according to demons, angels, gods or anything else, they are D&D creatures, therefore they have an alignment, therefore they belong to one of nine afterlives. Yes, the planar being of the place where they think they belong must determine if they do or do not, but ultimately, all they are doing is paperwork.

For dwarves, FWIW, those nine boxes don't matter until Hel accepts that the dwarf died with honour, and only then. And there are definitely no rules here, it depends entirely on what the god - usually Thor, but it looks like any of the others can take a stab at it if they want - can convince Hel of, and so there are no rules, logic or anything other than charisma and circumstances. The universe does not have a concept of "dying with honour", it is just whatever Hel and her oponent think it is at that particular time, for that particular dwarf. This is not a classification, it is a debate.

Bottom line, they are two completely separate systems that run on completely different and non-overlapping processes, and so you cannot use one to try to explain the other.

GW

[Fyraltari]

Good, especially Lawful Good, always takes one for the team.

But Thor's Lawful worshippers go to Asgard which is anything but Lawful, and it doesn't appear to bother anyone. Why should an Evil deity care what alignment shows up on its doorstep?

We're not talking about the gods and their worshippers, though. We're talking about the Outsiders and the non-religious souls like Roy.

After a few million lashings with firey whips, the non-evils will gladly take a turn at being the lasher. Eventually, administering regularly scheduled lashings will be the least sucky part of the day. And then the souls won't be the wrong alignment and the plane can begin to absorb them.

The Giant is on record saying souls in the afterlife can't meaningfully learn or change so I doubt that.

I know? I was just kinda agreeing with you, but explaining why Evil might be less strict in their procedures without them taking in Neutral souls that don't belong to them.

Or in short, I as going off on a tangent. See also the late addition footnote

GW

Oh, okay. Carry on.

It sounds both good and lawful to me that they would want only Lawful Good people in the afterlife Roy experienced. After all one of the defining characteristics of that alignment is that your actions and intentions matter. I'm not sure how they are being cruel by correctly classifying everyone.

Generally speaking there are two competing visions of justice: punitive justice seeks to inflict to the perpetrator a punishment equal, or at least proportionnal to the crime. Restaurative justice seeks to compensate the victims and make the criminal into a positive influence on society again. Neither of these view would consider sending people to be tortured by a bunch of demons just. The fiends torture everyone the same regardless of what they did in life because they don't care about fairness. And powering up literal Hell is about as far as being a positive influence as one gets.
Good is supposed to be compassionate, understanding and merciful, isn't it?
Shooting oneself in the foot and being unforgiving because somebody doesn't mean the requirements strikes me as more Lawful Neutral than any flavor of Good.

So it seems to me more reasonnable that the Good afterlives send people to the Neutral and Evil afterlives, not because they choose to, but because the cannot do otherwise.

We know for a fact that it is possible however that some souls do in fact get misclassified. We have seen both honorable dwarves that were in Hel's realm and we've seen clearly dishonorable ones released.

Like Greywolf said, this isn't the normal workings of the afterlives, it's something Hel, Thor and Loki rigged ontop of it. And the gods and their afterlife and the subject of discussion. They don't care about alignment, they take their worshippers in regardless.

Therefore I think that the reason good is more "exclusive" is because they consider their afterlife a reward that gets protected. The evil gods don't feel the same way likely. Evil people don't get to go to an evil paradise. They go to a place that renders them down into pure evil power through horrific means.

No-one who condones "a place that renders [people] down into pure evil power through horrific means" and actively feed them more victims, doesn't get to be called Good, in my opinion.

[brian 333]

She has no living worshippers. Undead are not killed. They are destroyed. They cannot be brought back. They do not have souls that go to her when slain. She creates some of the undead, but that's meaningless regarding her obtaining souls, which are all mortal.

Ghouls, ghasts, wights, mummies, liches, allips, wraiths, and ghosts have no souls? (The last three have nothing else!)

Undead are hers while they're on the Material. Once destroyed they revert to being what they were.

Citation needed.

The Giant is on record as saying that vampires work the way Greg was depicted, but that applies only to vampires. Other undead operate by other rules. Most undead of the free-willed varieties retain the soul their corpses had in life.

Libra Mortis discusses vampirization which appears to work the way Durkula was depicted, but so far as I know it does not generally apply that process to other undead types.

Most undead which are not simply animated remains such as skeletons and zombies do have souls. We do not have the Word Of The Giant on their eventual disposition. I speculate that any Northerner who freely chooses to become undead belongs to Hel. Those who have undeath imposed upon them may have a case to avoid Hel on that basis, but they remain dishonored dead, sooo...

[Kantaki]

Those who have undeath imposed upon them may have a case to avoid Hel on that basis, but they remain dishonored dead, sooo...

I mean, that's only a problem if you're a dwarf*.
So, Xykon should be fine. Well, not fine- he's still headed for the basement after all - but he won't end with Loki's brat by default.

Also, I'd argue that Durkon definitely died with honour, fighting a vampire and protecting his friends.

*Speaking of with, how does this interact with Reincarnate (Reincarnation? That druidic resurrection with a free random polymorph. )
If you come back to life as a dwarf, do you fall under the bet? If you were a dwarf and end up as, say, a elf or a halfling is that a "get out of Hel free" card?

[Psyren]

The Giant is on record as saying that vampires work the way Greg was depicted, but that applies only to vampires. Other undead operate by other rules. Most undead of the free-willed varieties retain the soul their corpses had in life.

Bold is what I meant.

[Peelee]

Ghouls, ghasts, wights, mummies, liches, allips, wraiths, and ghosts have no souls? (The last three have nothing else!)

That's not what I said.

They do not have souls that go to her when slain.

If they have souls that were not created by her, they are the original beings' souls, and she does not have default dominion over them. She didn't create them and if they don't worship her they go wherever they're supposed to go when the soul is released.

She creates some of the undead, but that's meaningless regarding her obtaining souls, which are all mortal.

If they have souls that were created by her (eg vampire Durkon), then when ultimately defeated, they are destroyed, and the "soul" does not empower her. She just gets the negative energy she used to make it return to her. That's a zero-sum game.

[Eric the White]

It has to do with the fact that The Bet has nothing to do with sin, judgment, rules or anything else your logic relies on. For everyone but the dwarves, nothing matters except which of the nine alignment boxes they fall in according to the universe. Not where they belong according to demons, angels, gods or anything else, they are D&D creatures, therefore they have an alignment, therefore they belong to one of nine afterlives. Yes, the planar being of the place where they think they belong must determine if they do or do not, but ultimately, all they are doing is paperwork.

For dwarves, FWIW, those nine boxes don't matter until Hel accepts that the dwarf died with honour, and only then. And there are definitely no rules here, it depends entirely on what the god - usually Thor, but it looks like any of the others can take a stab at it if they want - can convince Hel of, and so there are no rules, logic or anything other than charisma and circumstances. The universe does not have a concept of "dying with honour", it is just whatever Hel and her oponent think it is at that particular time, for that particular dwarf. This is not a classification, it is a debate.

Bottom line, they are two completely separate systems that run on completely different and non-overlapping processes, and so you cannot use one to try to explain the other.

GW

Sure I can. I don't see much of a difference between "I'm evaluating your death to see if you were honorable" and "I'm evaluating your life to see if it was good" You seem to be saying that evaluating good/evil or Law/Choas is based on hard and fast rules, but they are specifically shown in the comic to NOT be like that. The deva stated that she'd being perfectly justified in sending Roy to the Neutral Good afterlife, but she was letting him in because he was trying to be lawful. This whole discussion started on that point in fact. If the good planes can use their own judgement on individuals I don't see any reason why the evil ones can't too. From what I can tell from the comic the major limitation seems to be that the god that should have gotten the soul might come looking for it and the gods are HIGHLY adverse to conflict.

[Grey_Wolf_c]

Sure I can. I don't see much of a difference between "I'm evaluating your death to see if you were honorable" and "I'm evaluating your life to see if it was good" You seem to be saying that evaluating good/evil or Law/Choas is based on hard and fast rules, but they are specifically shown in the comic to NOT be like that. The deva stated that she'd being perfectly justified in sending Roy to the Neutral Good afterlife, but she was letting him in because he was trying to be lawful. This whole discussion started on that point in fact. If the good planes can use their own judgement on individuals I don't see any reason why the evil ones can't too. From what I can tell from the comic the major limitation seems to be that the god that should have gotten the soul might come looking for it and the gods are HIGHLY adverse to conflict.

There is a massive difference, because a) WHO does the evaluation is different - the universe versus Hel, and b) the nature of the evaluation: alignment evaluation is an objective measurement. Every soul must belong to one of nine categories, and only one, and it will be on one side or the other of an objectively real line, vs the subjective notion of "honorable death" which we have seen depends on how much Hel is willing to fight for.

Rich has outright told us that the Deva "chucking" the file into the neutral bin wouldn't mean Roy was Neutral, only that he was not LG, and thus that he'd go to the Neutral processing next. He's only at the Deva because Roy thinks of himself as LG, and thus that's where he started. But if he's wrong about himself, then he'll just get sent to the next place and then the next place until they can determine which exact box his soul belongs to and thus what afterlife he gets. But this is not a subjective decision by the Deva or the Modron or whomever. They are just going through the files to determine what box Roy's soul is in, regardless of what he thinks or what it superficially looks like it is. They cannot overrule the Universe, they can only determine what reality is. And from what we see, they just check if the souls belongs with them or not, and their best guess as to where it does belong if it is not with them.

Grey Wolf

[Eric the White]

There is a massive difference, because a) WHO does the evaluation is different - the universe versus Hel, and b) the nature of the evaluation: alignment evaluation is an objective measurement. Every soul must belong to one of nine categories, and only one, and it will be on one side or the other of an objectively real line, vs the subjective notion of "honorable death" which we have seen depends on how much Hel is willing to fight for.

Rich has outright told us that the Deva "chucking" the file into the neutral bin wouldn't mean Roy was Neutral, only that he was not LG, and thus that he'd go to the Neutral processing next. He's only at the Deva because Roy thinks of himself as LG, and thus that's where he started. But if he's wrong about himself, then he'll just get sent to the next place and then the next place until they can determine which exact box his soul belongs to and thus what afterlife he gets. But this is not a subjective decision by the Deva or the Modron or whomever. They are just going through the files to determine what box Roy's soul is in, regardless of what he thinks or what it superficially looks like it is. They cannot overrule the Universe, they can only determine what reality is. And from what we see, they just check if the souls belongs with them or not, and their best guess as to where it does belong if it is not with them.

Grey Wolf

And yet Durkon and Mirnah went directly to Thor and got entrance to Valhalla. You seem to be making up a lot of "rules" that aren't shown in the comic. To me it looks like the afterlife works as the gods want it to, and they can make exceptions and break rules if they choose and no other god gets upset about it.

[Fyraltari]

And yet Durkon and Mirnah went directly to Thor and got entrance to Valhalla. You seem to be making up a lot of "rules" that aren't shown in the comic. To me it looks like the afterlife works as the gods want it to, and they can make exceptions and break rules if they choose and no other god gets upset about it.

They went to the same cloud plane Roy went to, Thor just went there too to wait for them. Note that a deva apparently looked over Minrah's file while they waited and she's only pre-cleared to enter Valhalla.

[Quizatzhaderac]

Yes, the good care about that sort of thing. I'll bet the evil doesnt. They'll go ahead and take a edge case and take the power and frankly be a bit gleeful that they got away with something.

I see this as more of a law versus chaos thing.

Lawful cares that people are in their proper places and about any agreements they made. They (like good) probably also care about not polluting their planes with the wrong sort.

Evil people don't get to go to an evil paradise.

Jirix seemed pretty happy with his evil afterlife.

TDO one seems to be type to be willing to use good means to his ends when practical, and also able to understand enlightened self interest in many cases.

There was a world where the worst sin was to leave your enemies remains on the theatre seats.

Now I'm imaging Antigone with sapient move theater snacks.

the nature of the evaluation: alignment evaluation is an objective measurement.

#490 seems to make it pretty clear that:

1. The deva is trying to conduct an objective measurement
2. The deva is merely trying to conduct an objective measurement.

She indicates that she personally is making a real choice about Roy's destination (as opposed to an invalid choice that would make her "superiors blink").

She also says "That's what's important. To us, anyway." Which clearly indicates this is some kind of opinion.

[Fyraltari]

She also says "That's what's important. To us, anyway." Which clearly indicates this is some kind of opinion.

If one had to be trying to be evil to be evil, the Lower Planes would be rather roomy.