Wall of the Faithless(FR)

[jedipotter]

So the Forgotten Realms has The Wall of the Faithless, a wall that souls in the afterlife get put in if they had no faith in life. It's a way to encourage that a mortal have faith in life.

But some people don't like it. Why?

[Pan151]

Would you personally like being denied afterlife and instead being stuck in a wall with millions of other souls for all of eternity, just because a handfull of people (gods) don't want to lose their jobs?

If no, well, there you have why people don't like it.

If yes, then you have serious issues.

[AuraTwilight]

Because it's basically evil? It requires a huge pretzel of logic to get the good-aligned gods to go along with it and it's not really justifiable. It exists to scare mortals into picking any faith, which the gods of Faerun only care about because they need faith to survive, which is only true because Ao had to punish them for abusing mortals and neglecting their followers.

Essentially, the Wall of the Faithless is a cosmic testament to the irresponsible and terrible passing the buck of their punishment to the helpless, powerless masses. It's the greatest Injustice conceivable.

[Jeraa]

The Wall is a punishment.

It says "Believe in the gods. Obey the gods. Or else."

[Arkhaic]

Well, I like it because player's are easier to control and manipulate when they have a deity, and that makes it much easier to railroad. Not that I do that or anything. Please note that I am currently writing in a non-english language with a gazillion false-cognates, particularly involving the word 'I'.

[Pan151]

Well, I like it because player's are easier to control and manipulate when they have a deity, and that makes it much easier to railroad. Not that I do that or anything. Please note that I am currently writing in a non-english language with a gazillion false-cognates, particularly involving the word 'I'.

That depends on both the particular deity and the character's class.

Manipulating a Paladin of Tyr is easy.

Manipulating a Druid of Silvanus is not that easy.

Manipulating a Rogue of Tymora is never gonna happen.

[Psyren]

So the Forgotten Realms has The Wall of the Faithless, a wall that souls in the afterlife get put in if they had no faith in life. It's a way to encourage that a mortal have faith in life.

But some people don't like it. Why?

It forces you to worship a deity (note - you can't even worship a philosophy or ideal in FR, has to be an actual deity) or be consigned to a fate that in many respects is even worse than hell or an evil god. An evil deity will at least consume your soul leaving you with oblivion, while being in hell/the abyss/gehenna will either do that, or begin the aeons-long process of breaking you down to remake you as a fiend. With the wall you're simply nailed up for eternity until you go mad and then you're still in the wall. Without getting into top if atheism/agnosticism's legitimacy in general - whether a FR citizen believe the FR deities are worthy of such worship (and most are arguably not, due to malice or incompetence) is irrelevant - you must pick one, and not go back on your decision lest you risk becoming one of the False.

Not that Eberron's afterlife is much better, mind you.

[TheIronGolem]

Well, I like it because player's are easier to control and manipulate when they have a deity, and that makes it much easier to railroad. Not that I do that or anything. Please note that I am currently writing in a non-english language with a gazillion false-cognates, particularly involving the word 'I'.

Ahem. Let's stay on topic, please, and not import grudges from other threads.

As for me, I'm not hugely well-versed on Forgotten Realms, but the Wall seems a bit unnecessarily grimdark for the setting; something that would be more at home in Warhammer 40k or something.

[Svata]

So the Forgotten Realms has The Wall of the Faithless, a wall that souls in the afterlife get put in if they had no faith in life. It's a way to encourage that a mortal have faith in life.

But some people don't like it. Why?

Because it means if your character doesn't believe the gods deserve to be worshipped, or who just doesn't want to bow and scrape to some cosmic bully, he gets eternally tortured. Infinite punishment for a finite crime just isn't good, so, IMHO, there are no Good-aligned gods in the Forgotten Realms. Well, maybe Lawful Good, because they've been roped into it by cosmic Law, but most certainly no Chaotic Good, and it's an unlikely proposal for NG.

[Psyren]

The Wall was primarily intended as a way to say "players must pick a deity in this setting" and answer the obvious follow-up question of "well, what happens to the people that don't?" I would wager that in modern Faerun relatively few people get saddled with that fate. I doubt Greenwood et al. really thought through the implications of such a construct when paired with such obviously petty or foolish deities.

[Gildedragon]

It is clearly evil and no force of Good does anything to get rid of it.
Heck it then makes a lot of sense why FR is the first setting with the most good-aligned undead PC-able templates.

[Jeff the Green]

I like it only as a plothook in an epic campaign: take down Kelemvor and then get enough power to ignore the other gods' whining.

Other than that, I hate it because it flattens characters. Characters should worship and obey a god because they find them worth of such. Thus a fighter stating "I worship Pelor" or "I worship Hextor" say something about them because they don't have to worship a god. But "I worship Bane" or "I worship Torm" doesn't say anywhere near as much.

It also creates the odd situation where destroying the soul of a Faithless person when you kill them is arguably Good because you're being merciful and sparing them eternal torment in the same way you would by conducting a clean impromptu execution instead of turning them over to authorities that would draw and quarter them.

[Lord_Gareth]

I like it only as a plothook in an epic campaign: take down Kelemvor and then get enough power to ignore the other gods' whining.

Be fair. Kelemvor's first act as the God of the Dead was to tear down the wall and re-judge the dead within it, and he abolished the Wall of the Faithless for a time. Then Ao forced him to re-make it at gunpoint and has enforced its existence since. Kelemvor despises that wall.

[ryu]

Be fair. Kelemvor's first act as the God of the Dead was to tear down the wall and re-judge the dead within it, and he abolished the Wall of the Faithless for a time. Then Ao forced him to re-make it at gunpoint and has enforced its existence since. Kelemvor despises that wall.

And that's why I had to get VERY creative when striking down all forms of that wall before it could even come into existence as an idea through the magic of time travel. Why? Because screw that wall. Screw that wall and anything that would willingly allow it to continue existing let alone actively contemplate making it.

[thethird]

Yeah. Kelemvor is cool and dandy. The earlier death gods weren't as peachy though.

I dislike it because it is rather plain and boring. It only takes options away. It doesn't add much to the game, other than being a potential plot hook for epic characters.

[Jeff the Green]

Be fair. Kelemvor's first act as the God of the Dead was to tear down the wall and re-judge the dead within it, and he abolished the Wall of the Faithless for a time. Then Ao forced him to re-make it at gunpoint and has enforced its existence since. Kelemvor despises that wall.

True. However, the plan would probably require being the god of death and I think Kelemvor's too much of a coward to go against Ao.

[Psyren]

Well, there's your epic campaign - kick Ao in the nuts!

I think Golarion does this right - the "judging" from FR combined with the Great Wheel from Greyhawk. Truly neutral/unaligned souls most often become Aeons, or are simply reincarnated for another go.

I think becoming a Pleroma is a suitable reward for rejecting religion, don't you?

[Lord_Gareth]

True. However, the plan would probably require being the god of death and I think Kelemvor's too much of a coward to go against Ao.

Since Ao can un-create him with a snap of His fingers, I'd call it prudence more than cowardice. Kelemvor continues to strive for justice in death.

For this to make sense you need to understand the history of death in the Forgotten Realms. The first lord of the dead was Jergel, the Lord of the End of Everything. He instituted the Wall not to enforce faith in the gods, but in keeping with his nihilistic, all-consuming portfolios. But Jergal's power was literally so great that he spent most of his time trying not to implode beneath the weight of his responsibilities. In keeping with his nature, he raised Myrkul to Lord of the Dead, because he felt that Myrkul would execute the duties of that office in an appropriate fashion. Myrkul did, but he replaced Jergal's cold, malicious indifference with an active malevolence nearly without equal. Beneath the Lord of Bones, death was not simply unjust, it was actively cruel.

Kelemvor's rule is a new kind of death, one Jergal did not anticipate or plan for. The concept that death should be a just, fair process is one that the Lord of the End had not previously comprehended. Jergal is an orderly god, and he remains to observe what effect this will have on his former realm.

In the meantime, he waits. The end is coming. He needn't hasten it.

[malonkey1]

The wall did strike me as odd, but I suppose Ao's rules, and his enforcement of them, necessitate it. Ao forced the gods to depend on worshipers, so they couldn't just screw off on their portfolios. Logically, in order to survive, they would want to ensure as many worshipers as possible, which means they would have to have extreme consequences for not worshiping. That extreme deterrent from agnosticism happens to be this wall. The fact that Ao forced Kelemvor to reinstate it just proves that that's purpose it serves. It's a bad idea, and it's obviously evil, but when you stop thinking of worshipers as people, and think of them as dots on a screen, it makes sense. And it's pretty obvious that Ao only thinks of the Faerûnian people as fots on a screen.

[Vhaidara]

I would object to it more if the following weren't true
1. FR has an obscene number of gods. If you can't find one you like, you haven't looked enough
2. It is an interesting setting specific gimmick
3. Mask of the Betrayer was awesome.

[Jeff the Green]

The wall did strike me as odd, but I suppose Ao's rules, and his enforcement of them, necessitate it. Ao forced the gods to depend on worshipers, so they couldn't just screw off on their portfolios. Logically, in order to survive, they would want to ensure as many worshipers as possible, which means they would have to have extreme consequences for not worshiping. That extreme deterrent from agnosticism happens to be this wall. The fact that Ao forced Kelemvor to reinstate it just proves that that's purpose it serves. It's a bad idea, and it's obviously evil, but when you stop thinking of worshipers as people, and think of them as dots on a screen, it makes sense. And it's pretty obvious that Ao only thinks of the Faerûnian people as fots on a screen.

Actually, it entirely defeats Ao's purpose. He wanted the gods to pay attention to their worshippers and so made them dependent on worship. But then comes the Wall and suddenly the gods don't need to attend to their flocks as long as no one else who is philosophically compatible does any more.

[thethird]

Poor poor Kiaransalee.

[Kantolin]

Most of my realms games simply note, offhand, that a heroic group of adventurers got rid of the wall but their exploits are lost to time.

As the wall is not worthy of more than a sentence. Something that silly certainly doesn't deserve my putting actual attention on it. Otherwise most games run in the realms would end up being 'Okay now we have to go wreck the wall', which would be cute once or maybe twice.

As a side note, most players won't be playing their characters once their character's soul has gone on to an afterlife or not, so I actually can't see this stopping most player characters from not having deities nor really 'controlling' them.

(Although a game where the gods actively force each and every individual character, religious or not, to behave a certain way 'Or it's the wall with you!' in a controlling manner would actually be really entertaining. I'm seeing that as a kind of 'shadow hunters game', as a group of adventurers - each giving obviously fake lip service to some deity or another - are working to free the enslaved mortalkind from the tyranny of the gods.)

[Captnq]

Uhh... You guys know that Kelemvor took down the wall for a while, right? Then the other gods tried him for the crime of being Human and he had to get his Heartlessness back on or lose his job, right?

[Psyren]

Uhh... You guys know that Kelemvor took down the wall for a while, right? Then the other gods tried him for the crime of being Human and he had to get his Heartlessness back on or lose his job, right?

Which just goes to show that, as someone said above, there really aren't any Good gods in FR. Or if there are, they are perilously incompetent/weak/dumb.

[ryu]

Uhh... You guys know that Kelemvor took down the wall for a while, right? Then the other gods tried him for the crime of being Human and he had to get his Heartlessness back on or lose his job, right?

Oh we covered that. I never said old Kelly got the sharp end of the stick. Most of the older cast from the very early days of the setting got proactively offed though.

[Blackhawk748]

All i can say is, GO KELEMVOR, hes my favorite death god, pretty much because hes the only one i can find thats neutral that isnt a controlling biotch (im looking at you Wee Jaas). And now i find out he ripped down this incredibly evil wall (woo!) but was then forced to put it back up "or else" (boo). I think i may have a new favorite diety, and yet one more reason not to adventure in faerun, if Thay wasnt reason enough.

Slightly related Kingdoms of Kalamar actually has a group whose whole point is proving that the gods are not deserving of worship, and they make several good points, though the gods in KoK have to be pretty hands off because of their Accord.

[Psyren]

How is Wee Jas controlling? She doesn't even hate necromancers, she just wants them to be respectful.

Nerull is the jerk in GH.

[Blackhawk748]

I remember reading somewhere that she was incredibly strict, like Nazi level, though that may have just been a past DM, and i freakin HATE Nerull. Gives Death and all Necromancers a bad name, i mean Vecna i can at least respect, but Nerull is just a jerk that kicks the table while most of the gods are playing chess and the Chaotic gods are off playing tag with their favorite weapons.

[Pan151]

How is Kelemvor not a control freak? Last I checked, he has an entire order of doomguides dedicated to introducing any and all necromancers, undead and anyone defying death in general to the sharper end of a blade.

Even Jergal, the original god of Death and Tyranny, is mostly fine with necromancy and undeath.