Are the evil afterlives actually punishments?

[Peelee]

I think (and could be wrong) that this might be the crux of the discussion - as Tzardok is speaking about the Planescape setting where hamishspence is talking about DnD in general, it is entirely possible that in Planescape the generic exception (the creation of petitioners) is the rule.

I would assume that unless otherwise stated that The Giant is making use of general DnD (with his own tweaks) rather then a specific (non-OOTS) setting.

On this I completely agree.

[hamishspence]

all sources I remember claim that souls can't be resurrected anymore because they were assimilated into the plane or converted into an outsider

A petitioner, in 3.0-3.5, is an outsider. Complete Divine also states (page 130) that a soul that has become a petitioner, cannot come back from the dead, since, by being given a new body, they have been effectively returned to life.
So, since souls normally can be resurrected for a long period after death, it follows that they generally don't become petitioners for a long time.

[Tzardok]

Yes, my word choice of "normal" was propably not right. But I did mention in every post that I was primarily talking about Planescape.

And yes, it is an outright retcon:

Here's the bottom line: A petitioner is the spirit of a basher who's died someplace. It doesn't matter if the deader was a planar or a prime; he's still going to wind up as a petitioner, and perhaps get reconstituted in some bodily form.

You could maybe argue now that 3.x redefined the term to mean only those who get a bodily form (ignoring that On Hallowed Ground doesn't say that this is reserved to exceptional souls), but even in that case the leaving behind of memories is described as something that happens on the way to the afterlife and to all souls, not just those that get a body.

Edit: Also, Planescape sourcebooks usually mention that petitioners are pretty much common as dirt on the Outer Planes and usually fulfil the roles of nameless NPCs.
And On Hallowed Ground has rules on pg 32 on how petitioners are resurrected.

But no matter if a sod's been a petitioner for a day or a century, when he awakens in his old body, he has little or no memory of his time on the planes. The return of his original memories wash the others away.

[Peelee]

Yes, my word choice of "normal" was propably not right. But I did mention in every post that I was primarily talking about Planescape.

Ok, but are you talking about different D&D source books conflicting with each other in a vacuum, or are you talking about what likely happens in Order of the Stick?

[Tzardok]

Ok, but are you talking about different D&D source books conflicting with each other in a vacuum, or are you talking about what likely happens in Order of the Stick?

Vacuum. As I mentioned before, I didn't even want to start talking about this, but when GloatingSwine mentioned the "afterlifes are the way the people who go there think the world works" part, I couldn't help myself and expanded on that.

I'm also pretty sure I always mentioned that the planes in OOTS don't work the way I'm talking about them?

[Rater202]

So the takeaway here is that all D&D Afterlives suck and even the allegedly good gods only see mortal souls as sustenance, raw materials, or fodder with which to craft more soldiers who retain nothing of their orignal existence.

The whole of existence is a scam, Mortals are basically cattle and the only difference between good and evil is whether you're Kobe Beef or veal.

...Oh God. I think a lot of us have commented on the inconsistency with Timeless Body, in t3.5, how it does make sense that you'd still die when your time is up if you're not aging and can't be aged artificially. If you're just permenantly in the prime of your youth.

Most of the classes that get timeless bodies are either spiritual types or outright divine casters.

The reason you still die at some arbitrarily defined points is that whatever Gods, Planer Concept, or Cosmic Principal is the source of your powers is yanking them away or just letting you die so they can grab your powerful soul for food/materials.

[Tzardok]

I mean, you can formulate it that way, but the way Planescape described it, it was always about transcendence. A petitioner that fuses into their god isn't eaten, they become their god in a certain way. They add their own unique perspective of what that god is and means to the deity, and through that the deity evolves, becomes more. A god without souls is doomed to stagnate and never change.

The same with the planes. When a petitioner is absorbed by a plane, their perspective of what it means to be Lawful Good or whatever is added to the greater whole. Every soul that goes to Mount Celestia makes Lawful Good stronger, either by directly becoming one with it, or by fighting as one of the archons. Every soul in Baator makes the hellish hierarchy greater, every soul in the Abyss adds a new vice to the orgy of depravity and violence until it spills out over the rest of reality, every soul in Aborea furthers the cause of freedom and inspiration in the world.

You may think that you abandoning your individuality on the way makes it horrible, but if you ever felt the need to be part of something vastly greater than you are? Well, this is the perfect place for you.

Edit: And to return to OOTS, I think this applies in some way even to the OOTS version of the cosmology. It's all a question of interpretation. Talking about it as if it was a big soul farm is interpreting it in the worst possible way, just like Redcloak does.

[Rater202]

I mean, you can formulate it that way, but the way Planescape described it, it was always about transcendence. A petitioner that fuses into their god isn't eaten, they become their god in a certain way. They add their own unique perspective of what that god is and means to the deity, and through that the deity evolves, becomes more. A god without souls is doomed to stagnate and never change.

The same with the planes. When a petitioner is absorbed by a plane, their perspective of what it means to be Lawful Good or whatever is added to the greater whole. Every soul that goes to Mount Celestia makes Lawful Good stronger, either by directly becoming one with it, or by fighting as one of the archons. Every soul in Baator makes the hellish hierarchy greater, every soul in the Abyss adds a new vice to the orgy of depravity and violence until it spills out over the rest of reality, every soul in Aborea furthers the cause of freedom and inspiration in the world.

You may think that you abandoning your individuality on the way makes it horrible, but if you ever felt the need to be part of something vastly greater than you are? Well, this is the perfect place for you.

Yeah, and if I eat a steak part of that cow becomes part of me. Not such a good existence for the cow though.

You can dress it up however you want but at the end of the day the Gods/Planes are predatory parasites furthering their evolution at the expense of countless beings who literally worship them.

[Fyraltari]

So the takeaway here is that all D&D Afterlives suck

It's almost impossible to come up with an afterlife concept that doesn't suck when you think about it for a moment.

and even the allegedly good gods only see mortal souls as sustenance, raw materials, or fodder with which to craft more soldiers who retain nothing of their orignal existence.

That's not true. Thor demonstrably care about his followers as people. They still go through the same process, but it's not like the gods can opt out. At the very least, the good afterlives make the process as pleasant as they can.

[Peelee]

Vacuum. As I mentioned before, I didn't even want to start talking about this, but when GloatingSwine mentioned the "afterlifes are the way the people who go there think the world works" part, I couldn't help myself and expanded on that.

I'm also pretty sure I always mentioned that the planes in OOTS don't work the way I'm talking about them?

I might have missed that. Sorry!

It's almost impossible to come up with an afterlife concept that doesn't suck when you think about it for a moment.

Almost as hard as coming up with a life concept that doesn't suck.

[Tzardok]

Yeah, and if I eat a steak part of that cow becomes part of me. Not such a good existence for the cow though.

Does the cow's personality become part of your personality and get a voice in what you do from then on? Did the cow think before its death that you were the best guy in the world, that living life the way you do is the best thing ever and wanted to be with you for all of eternity after death? If no, then it's not the same thing.

I might have missed that. Sorry!

No problem. Things like that happen. And I always feel like I am not expressing myself not understandably enough, so it's a valid concern.

[Rater202]

It's almost impossible to come up with an afterlife concept that doesn't suck when you think about it for a moment.

Theres a reason why immortality or some other form of eternal existence appeals to so many people.

That's not true. Thor demonstrably care about his followers as people. They still go through the same process, but it's not like the gods can opt out. At the very least, the good afterlives make the process as pleasant as they can.

That was a more general statement since the topic had moved to more general D&D cosmology.

As for making it pleasant... An "angel of mercy" euthanizing the terminally ill without their consent is still a serial killer, no matter the motive or method. No matter how nice Thor is to his food before he eats it, he;'s still eating it. If anything, being nice to the food makes it worse.

And Thor himself is just one God. In one version of the cosmology. And he for example seemed perfectly fine with the deal that Hel got every dwarf soul that died dishonorably(which explicitly includes innocents) up until things got inconvenient for his faction and since Thor Worship seems to be the default for most dwarves going by Celia's comment back when the party was split, that means that a lot of his worshipers became Hel's slaves post death so how much does he really care about individuals?

[Fyraltari]

Really, a cornerstone of D&D cosmology is thay evil and good are locked in a stalemate, why would you expect them to be perfect?

The forces of Good offer centuries of bliss before asking you to contribute again. A contribution they require not to wither and be conquered by hordes of fiends. Complaining that the fun times don't last forever seems a bit... Entitled?

Almost as hard as coming up with a life concept that doesn't suck.

And yet people still seem to find the concept of cessation of existence abhorrent. *Shaking my head*

[dancrilis]

The forces of Good offer centuries of bliss before asking you to contribute again. A contribution they require not to wither and be conquered by hordes of fiends. Complaining that the fun times don't last forever seems a bit... Entitled?

It is possible that if at some core level of your personality you are not willing to step up and aid against the forces of evil dominating the cosmos that you might not belong in the good afterlife to begin with.

[Peelee]

And yet people still seem to find the concept of cessation of existence abhorrent. *Shaking my head*

Well that's easily explained, it's because there's more Star Wars to watch.

[Rater202]

Really, a cornerstone of D&D cosmology is thay evil and good are locked in a stalemate, why would you expect them to be perfect?

The forces of Good offer centuries of bliss before asking you to contribute again. A contribution they require not to wither and be conquered by hordes of fiends. Complaining that the fun times don't last forever seems a bit... Entitled?

It's not entitled to want to exist.

[Resileaf]

Something to keep in mind is that the good afterlives never force souls to ascend. It's described that the souls in Celestia spend years, decades, maybe centuries partying in the lowest levels and enjoying their perfect existence, but eventually they grow bored or decide that they need different kinds of stimulation. So they decide to ascend, where they start to grow more spiritual and introspective, but there's nothing stopping them from going back down if they want to. The more time passes, the higher they ascend the mountain and realize what they can now do until of their own free will, they decide to ascend and fuse with the plane's lawful good energy, satisfied that they've experienced all they wanted to experience.

At no point were they pressured to do it. No one marched them up the mountain. They weren't controlled.

[Fyraltari]

Theres a reason why immortality or some other form of eternal existence appeals to so many people.

It's almost impossible to come up with a concept if eternal existence that doesn't suck when you think about it for a moment.

That was a more general statement since the topic had moved to more general D&D cosmology.

As for making it pleasant... An "angel of mercy" euthanizing the terminally ill without their consent is still a serial killer, no matter the motive or method.

The souls on Celestia don't seem bothered in the least, where are you getting "without their consent" from?

No matter how nice Thor is to his food before he eats it, he;'s still eating it. If anything, being nice to the food makes it worse.

What would you have Thor do, then?

And Thor himself is just one God. In one version of the cosmology.

He seems representative of the way the Giant thinks a good D&D god ought to behave, but that may just be my reading.

And he for example seemed perfectly fine with the deal that Hel got every dwarf soul that died dishonorably(which explicitly includes innocents) up until things got inconvenient for his faction and since Thor Worship seems to be the default for most dwarves going by Celia's comment back when the party was split, that means that a lot of his worshipers became Hel's slaves post death so how much does he really care about individuals?

What? No, you have that backwards. The reason most dwarves worship Thor is because he's the one who taught them how to avoid Hel's clutches. He's never been fine with the Bet, it was made in his name when he was no state to meaningfully consent.

He abides by it because he is forced by the Gods' convention, not because he wants to. Notice hiw his choice of distraction was to make Hel release dwarves he couldn't save, which include dwarves that would have gone to Loki (and presumably oher gods too).

[hamishspence]

But no matter if a sod's been a petitioner for a day or a century, when he awakens in his old body, he has little or no memory of his time on the planes. The return of his original memories wash the others away.

And Roy's memories of everything "beyond the big golden gate" are extremely blurred too - just not quite for the same reason.

https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0666.html

[Resileaf]

As for making it pleasant... An "angel of mercy" euthanizing the terminally ill without their consent is still a serial killer, no matter the motive or method. No matter how nice Thor is to his food before he eats it, he;'s still eating it. If anything, being nice to the food makes it worse.

Also something I'd like to respond to this, the gods in OotS don't eat souls, they eat worship provided to them by souls. The soul never comes to any harm from this worship being provided. It's not like eating a burger, it's like hugging a cow to share in its heat.

[Rater202]

The souls on Celestia don't seem bothered in the least, where are you getting "without their consent" from?

Roy's Archon didn't exactly clarify what happens to the souls that transcend when they get to the top of the mountain.

He was very vague about it.

If you weren't informed of something, then it doens't matter if you agreed. You don't know what it entails, your agreement is worthless.

Also, comparing what Thor says about the Gods taking sustenance from mortals to what the Giant's said about ll afterlives, he's leaving out some details about what eventually happens to the souls providing the fourth kind of sustenance.

[Millstone85]

It's almost impossible to come up with an afterlife concept that doesn't suck when you think about it for a moment.

centuries partying [...] eventually they grow bored [...] satisfied that they've experienced all they wanted to experience.

Yes, that's pretty much the best I can come up with myself.

[hamishspence]

Also something I'd like to respond to this, the gods in OotS don't eat souls, they eat worship provided to them by souls. The soul never comes to any harm from this worship being provided. It's not like eating a burger, it's like hugging a cow to share in its heat.

Gods only get worship from living mortals. The "slowly powering the Outer Planes and the Afterlives over time" bit:

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

may be tied to the "loss of individuality" process.

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.

A soul, in addition to the personality traits it had in life, also generates a quantity of Soul Power™. The afterlife processes that soul so that it has less personality and the power is more available to the gods/other beings who rule that plane. This is why gods want souls to go to "their" afterlife; more dead souls equals more available power. Destroying a soul simply removes that quantity of power from the multiverse (or converts it to some unusable form, if we assume that there's conservation of energy in play) in addition to eradicating what's left of the personality.

[gbaji]

But that is if you accept the framing that Haley murdered Crystal in cold blood, which I do not. Haley killed someone who had actively been trying to kill her and broke a truce in order to continue trying to kill her and would have resumed trying to kill her at the first opportunity (and in fact did so).

I'm not sure how you can read this and not see anything other than cold blooded murder. She literally ambushed Crystal while she was in the shower and killed her. She made a point of choosing that time because Crystal wouldn't be wearing her protective jewelry (premeditated murder), and literally went out of her way to do it before leaving. And while it's somewhat retconned later as a form of "I just got to you first", the reality is that at the time Haley didn't mention anything of the sort. She only talked about stealing Crystal's items to sell for profit and refusing to pay the money to the guild that had been agreed upon in the deal brokered by Celia. As far as we can tell, the guild and Crystal were willing to go along with the peace agreement until Haley broke it. The worst Crystal did prior to that was mock her about her haircut.

There is no indication at all that Crystal intended at any point in the immediate future (or any future for that matter) to actually kill Haley. If anything, she intentionally didn't want to because her status as nemesis (or whatever) allowed her to gain levels when Haley did. She had to be ordered to do it.

So yeah. That was straight up premeditated murder for nothing more than direct personal profit. While not on the same grand scale as what V did, at least V was in the midst of a fight (and under the influence of the soul splice), and didn't actually realize the full ramifications of what was being done (or how widespread the effect would be), and actually showed remorse. We've seen nothing from Haley that she views killing Crystal as anything more than just something she needed to do.

That's not true. Thor demonstrably care about his followers as people. They still go through the same process, but it's not like the gods can opt out. At the very least, the good afterlives make the process as pleasant as they can.

I don't think the Gods really have much ability to influence how the outer planes work anyway. Not sure, but I don't think they created them. More like they're manifestations of the same primal reality and have a part in it all. As the top manifestations of various archetypal aspects of the alignment system that the outer planes represent, their specific power does derive from the process, but they are as much a part of it as any other manifestation (like the outsiders). They are as much formed from ideas as the outer planes themselves.

They do appear to have created the prime material plane, and the mortal beings that live there, but that may also merely be them playing their "part" in a larger cosmology. It's an interesting feedback effect (and a bit of a paradox at the same time). Thoughts coalesce into regions in the astral plane and form the outer planes (and their associated alignments based on the types of thoughts). The Gods manifest as representations of specific subsets of those ideas. They in turn create the prime material plane and mortals. And the mortals via their thoughts and alignment and worship fuel the outer planes and the gods (and the outsiders too). Of course, one might wonder where the thoughts came from in the first place...

[Fyraltari]

It is possible that if at some core level of your personality you are not willing to step up and aid against the forces of evil dominating the cosmos that you might not belong in the good afterlife to begin with.

That too.

Well that's easily explained, it's because there's more Star Wars to watch.

Ah. So this is what hell is like.

It's not entitled to want to exist.

To want to exist forever at the cost of everything else? Yes, yes it is. Also, you are calling Thor morally bankrupt for continuing to exist, too.

Something to keep in mind is that the good afterlives never force souls to ascend. It's described that the souls in Celestia spend years, decades, maybe centuries partying in the lowest levels and enjoying their perfect existence, but eventually they grow bored or decide that they need different kinds of stimulation. So they decide to ascend, where they start to grow more spiritual and introspective, but there's nothing stopping them from going back down if they want to. The more time passes, the higher they ascend the mountain and realize what they can now do until of their own free will, they decide to ascend and fuse with the plane's lawful good energy, satisfied that they've experienced all they wanted to experience.

At no point were they pressured to do it. No one marched them up the mountain. They weren't controlled.

That too.

Roy's Archon didn't exactly clarify what happens to the souls that transcend when they get to the top of the mountain.

He was very vague about it.

If you weren't informed of something, then it doens't matter if you agreed. You don't know what it entails, your agreement is worthless.

Horace climbed down the Mountain. If you get to the top and decide you don't want to merge with a plane, you can just climb back down to a level you're confortable with. No one is being forced or tricked, it's just that they eventually all decide to do it. Because being the kind of persons who would make that choice is the reason they're there in the first place.

I notice you haven't answered my question about what you'd want Thor to do instead.

[Resileaf]

Gods only get worship from living mortals. The "slowly powering the Outer Planes and the Afterlives over time" bit:

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

may be tied to the "loss of individuality" process.

But they still don't eat the soul. They just get to be fed by its proximity to them.

[hamishspence]

And while it's somewhat retconned later as a form of "I just got to you first", the reality is that at the time Haley didn't mention anything of the sort. She only talked about stealing Crystal's items to sell for profit and refusing to pay the money to the guild that had been agreed upon in the deal brokered by Celia. As far as we can tell, the guild and Crystal were willing to go along with the peace agreement until Haley broke it. The worst Crystal did prior to that was mock her about her haircut.

There is no indication at all that Crystal intended at any point in the immediate future (or any future for that matter) to actually kill Haley.

Strips were left out "deleted scenes" so to speak, because including them would have slowed the online story too much, and later included in the book Don't Split the Party.

That mission to rescue Roy's body? Crystal spent the whole of it trying to get Haley killed, in a "plausible deniability" way that would fool Celia and Belkar. Haley was hard-pressed to survive it.

[Fyraltari]

There is no indication at all that Crystal intended at any point in the immediate future (or any future for that matter) to actually kill Haley. If anything, she intentionally didn't want to because her status as nemesis (or whatever) allowed her to gain levels when Haley did. She had to be ordered to do it.

So yeah. That was straight up premeditated murder for nothing more than direct personal profit. While not on the same grand scale as what V did, at least V was in the midst of a fight (and under the influence of the soul splice), and didn't actually realize the full ramifications of what was being done (or how widespread the effect would be), and actually showed remorse. We've seen nothing from Haley that she views killing Crystal as anything more than just something she needed to do.

There's a bonus page in that book where crystal murders the not-necromancer whose name escapes me right now for no reason and basically promises to kill Haley too. The Giant has stated that Haley's ambush was written with this page in mind and that the negative reactions the ambush received made him regret not include it in the main comic as its absence makes Haley's actions look much worse than he intended.

[Peelee]

That too.

Ah. So this is what hell is like.

Before Andor I'd agree with you, but then, well, Andor happened.

[Rater202]

To want to exist forever at the cost of everything else? Yes, yes it is. Also, you are calling Thor morally bankrupt for continuing to exist, too.

No, I'm calling the Gods in general morally bankrupt for prolonging their own existence at the expense of countless mortal beings who are being misled about what the afterlife entails.

As for what he should do? He can start by not leaving out the "eventually, you lose all sense of self and get consumed by either me or the plane itself" part out of his lecture on how godly sustenance works.

If the gods want the moral high ground, mortals need to know that they're basically cattle for the Planes and Gods while they're still alive. Reasonable access to means of extending their life indefinitely should be widely available, for mortals who want to opt-out of eventually being god food.

Alternatively, at the beginging of a given act of creation the Gods could have made all races immortal and subsisted entirely on worship.