Why are 10 million dwarf souls even important?

[Myta]

@Palla:
You forgot the dead ones, which are basically the whole argument here.
If you use your numbers and assume that a few generations of dead people already ended up with all the gods except Hel (and are still in their afterlifes), then you arrive at a much larger number than 10 million. Just multiply your 7.25 million with a number of generations that seems appropriate to you.

Your numbers actually agree with my statement that I made very pessimistic assumptions. When you say there were 400million beings in 1200, then my assumptions of at least 50million in oots world seems indeed good as an absolute minimum. I am not wildly guessing btw., I am just not stating every piece of information that enters my assumption. I am too lazy for that, and you probably dont want to read it anyway.


@LoRdofCookIES:
you forgot the non-dwarfen population, especially humans. Which not only have greater numbers, but also much shorter generations.

[Porthos]

@Palla:
You forgot the dead ones, which are basically the whole argument here.
If you use your numbers and assume that a few generations of dead people already ended up with all the gods except Hel (and are still in their afterlifes), then you arrive at a much larger number than 10 million. Just multiply your 7.25 million with a number of generations that seems appropriate to you.

Your numbers actually agree with my statement that I made very pessimistic assumptions. When you say there were 400million beings in 1200, then my assumptions of at least 50million in oots world seems indeed good as an absolute minimum. I am not wildly guessing btw., I am just not stating every piece of information that enters my assumption. I am too lazy for that, and you probably dont want to read it anyway.


@LoRdofCookIES:
you forgot the non-dwarfen population, especially humans. Which not only have greater numbers, but also much shorter generations.

What you're not accounting for, and was explicitly addressed in another thread, is souls don't stick around forever in the afterlife in D&D.

Mergered with a plane. Become otherworldly beings. Become spirits that vaguely remember their past lives, if at all. Get forged into icky things by beings with little to no principles. Get killed by random adventuring parties. Hell, throw in re-incarnation if one wants.

The point is, don't expect every single person who has ever lived to still be kickin' it and counting to whatever ledger exists in the afterlife.

[Myta]

No I am not forgetting that, I included it in one of my last posts.
I just made the assumption that at least a few generations (>3) are still around and not have been recycled yet. And this assumptions is based on the depiction of Roys afterlife, where he meets his grandfather.

also considering that the afterlife is supposed to be some kind of "eternal" state, it would be very strange if its shorter than 100 years (about 4 generations). That would be shorter than the life of the longer lived races, and shorter than a long human life.

[Sylian]

But instead of dividing equally, Hel is taking 10 million right off the top of the Northern pantheon's 133 million, leaving 123 million for the other 17 gods to split, giving them about 7.25 million each.

You're assuming that every soul goes to a god. There is reason to believe that non-followers of gods just go to an outer plane, with no connection to a particular god. Roy is probably an example of this. This should make the number of followers much lower, and make the 10 million stand out more.

[The Giant]

It's a fictional story. It works because I say it works, and the rest of the story will be written as if it works. I, the author of the comic, am telling you that the math works out in Hel's favor no matter how you try to calculate it.

Do you need an explanation? Fine. Let's say—and I am absolutely making this up on the spot, but it still counts—that getting a dead soul gives a god a burst of power at the moment that it happens, and then a much lower long-term generation of power over the course of centuries (say, 1/1000th as much) until the soul eventually merges into whatever it merges into and stops contributing completely. Therefore, getting 10 million in one day will grant a huge boost of power to Hel that she can use immediately to gain more influence over the world-making process. All the previous souls that died had their power boosts used up by their respective gods doing things like granting spells and making miracles and such, things that Hel barely does. And once she can influence the world-building process, she can set up the rules differently so that she isn't at such a disadvantage anymore, leading to more consistent generation of power going forward.

There. Now all the math doesn't matter, because as of this post, the amount of power granted at one time greatly outweighs the accumulated drip of power over the previous however-many centuries.

But really, the important lesson here is this: Rather than making assumptions that don't fit with the text and then complaining about the text being wrong, why not just choose different assumptions that DO fit with the text?

[Myta]

Rather than making assumptions that don't fit with the text and then complaining about the text being wrong, why not just choose different assumptions that DO fit with the text?

Because that would not be fun.
I do not make assumptions to reach a certain conclusion, I try to make realistic assumptions (as far as a base in a fictional ruleset can be seen as realistic) and then look at the result. By completely making up the assumptions, I could arrive at any conclusion, and there would be no meaningful way to discuss it... since anyone else could just make up his own arbitrary assumptions, which then are as valid as mine. That would be boring.

Also I did not complain about "the text being wrong", only that I do not think that Hels plan would work like that. Of course "like that" must mean "unless I am missing information on how things work". Since we are discussing a fictional work where we already know that the rules are meant to change to fit the story, I did not see a reason to include that in my post, since this has to be applied to basically every discussion.
Also this thread should not be seen as a "the plot cant work" complaint. Just from the comic, I did not see a reason why Hel MUST be right about this. I would not see a problem in the plot if she were wrong. She can make that mistake, the other 17 gods seem to already have made a similar mistake by not considering the dwarf souls in their own plan... and there is no change in the consequences if she is wrong. On the one hand, I am pretty sure that the world wont be destroyed in the next few strips, so the exact consequences dont matter. On the other hand it is more important what Hel thinks will happen for her to try this plan, not what will actually happen. And even she could be conviced that she is wrong in this point, it would still be favourable for her to destroy the world. While she would not be queen under that assumption, here new position will still be far far better than before.

[woweedd]

Because that would not be fun.
I do not make assumptions to reach a certain conclusion, I try to make realistic assumptions (as far as a base in a fictional ruleset can be seen as realistic) and then look at the result. By completely making up the assumptions, I could arrive at any conclusion, and there would be no meaningful way to discuss it... since anyone else could just make up his own arbitrary assumptions, which then are as valid as mine. That would be boring.

Also I did not complain about "the text being wrong", only that I do not think that Hels plan would work like that. Of course "like that" must mean "unless I am missing information on how things work". Since we are discussing a fictional work where we already know that the rules are meant to change to fit the story, I did not see a reason to include that in my post, since this has to be applied to basically every discussion.
Also this thread should not be seen as a "the plot cant work" complaint. Just from the comic, I did not see a reason why Hel MUST be right about this. I would not see a problem in the plot if she were wrong. She can make that mistake, the other 17 gods seem to already have made a similar mistake by not considering the dwarf souls in their own plan... and there is no change in the consequences if she is wrong. On the one hand, I am pretty sure that the world wont be destroyed in the next few strips, so the exact consequences dont matter. On the other hand it is more important what Hel thinks will happen for her to try this plan, not what will actually happen. And even she could be conviced that she is wrong in this point, it would still be favourable for her to destroy the world. While she would not be queen under that assumption, here new position will still be far far better than before.

Realism left this story around the time that someone's physical characteristics changed as a result of edtion changes. Rich doesn't care about realistic population. He doesn't care about realism period. All he cares about is that he gets to tell the story he wants to tell and if that means not being realistic? So be it. I think you're going at this backwards. Rich didn't create the OOTS world and then create a story around it. He created a story and built the world specifically for the purposes of that story. The world is made to fit the story. The story is not made to fit the world. You confuse that at your own peril.

[Tom Lehmann]

Do you know how I picked 10 million? I googled the medieval population of Scandinavia and made it about the same.

Thank you for making the effort and taking the time to do this. I appreciate it. Since D&D's generic setting is pseudo-medieval western european plus magic (and OOTS's setting is an extension of this), taking the time to ground it -- even a little bit -- helps your story, imo.

if that bothers you on some math-level of your brain, just pretend that the words "ten million" are a typo and it should say whatever number you would feel would be big enough to make Hel's stated plan "make sense" to you, personally.

Yes, a reader can do this, but each time a reader has to consciously do this, suspension of disbelief becomes harder. By making the effort on your end, fewer readers have to do this. Of course, since humans see things differently, no number will work for everyone, but as long as it works for some readers, I don't think your effort was in vain.

you should assume that the characters are more familiar with the relevant details than you are—and if they say, "Hey, this number is the right number!" than you, as a reader, should accept that as being true within this story unless the story gives you some clue otherwise (like a character saying, "Ten million? That doesn't sound right").

True, though we as readers don't know whether in the next few strips -- which you know about but we don't -- a character will question something stated in the current strip. You generally "play fair" and show us when a character is making a false assumption (as in 865 where Roy says the party has time to carry out their plan when, in fact, they don't), but do occasionally mislead us (as in 371-374, where both Xykon and MITD state their intention to imprison Miko when Xykon's real plan -- revealed in 376 -- is to let her escape in order to scry on her to detect the Azure City's gate location).

I do not understand comments that boil down to, "I don't think the plot works the way the text says it works."

Some of this has to do with suspension of disbelief when a story is serialized over time. Not only does serialization affect the reader's experience of a story's pacing, it also gives readers more time to go "Wait a moment, how does that work exactly?" as they mull over a story's twists and turns while waiting for the next installment. It's where the Hulk film critic idea that a film's (or story's) "hand-waving" only needs to be good enough to get viewers through the "moment", for the length of the movie, runs into difficulties. A serial lasts a long time, with lots of time between the "moments" when a reader first reads each strip.

Another aspect is that fantasy, as part of "speculative fiction", tends to attract many readers who are curious and who *enjoy* poking at and wondering about a story's assumptions. Sometimes, this "poking at" is just playful exploration and speculation and sometimes it is done in a very critical way. I appreciate that for the creator it can be hard to distinguish between the two, especially as many fans don't make much effort to couch their speculations in non-critical ways.

[Quild]

I had the same thought and I was planning on a thread of my own, until I did the (rough) math:

1. At strip no 275 we learn that (in the time of the order of the Scribble) the world was made around 1.000 years ago, therefore year 1.186 should be correct.
2. Dwarves in DnD are considered old at around 200. Durkon was stated to be 55 y/o and young. Therefore it's logical to assume that a "generation" of dwarves should be around 100 years.
3. Assuming no severe population increases or decreases we can summise that each generation should be around 10 mil people (as stated by Hel for the current generation).

That puts us around 110 million already dead and claimed dwarven souls.

We also know that the Northern Pantheon consists of 18 Gods, where Odin is the most powerful (as implied by Hel) and we can assume that power comes with the number of souls claimed (as also implied by Hel), therefore Odin should have the most.

Another easy assumption is that there is some way of distributing the souls among them and we also know that dwarves do not want to end up with Hel. That, along with Thor and Loki's scheeme of which we don't know the details yet, makes me think that Hel gets the least number of souls per generation.

So, let's say that Odin gets double what everyone else is getting and Hel gets half.. That would put Odin at around 12 mil souls and Hel at 3 mil.
In this scenario Hel really gets on top of him with the 10 mil bonus from world doom.

Of course this doesn't have to be the exact case or the eaxct numbers, but it shows how due to the small number of generations that have passed this 10 mil bonus could turn the tide for her. After all 10 out of 110 is 9% which is a significant figure.

I rest my case.

You're forgetting that Northern Gods don't only get dwarven souls. They get souls from other races. And for these races, Hel doesn't get much souls when the deceased lacked an honor/dishonor system.
Humans have a way shorter lifespan and are likely to be way more numerous than dwarves. That should matter. Or would without the power burst Giant's speak of or whatever else reason :D

I do not understand comments that boil down to, "I don't think the plot works the way the text says it works." I understand that characters can lie or be mistaken, but at a certain point you have to understand that the only way for me to communicate non-visual information to you in the strip is through dialogue.

I do not crunch numbers when writing dialogue. Do you know how I picked 10 million? I googled the medieval population of Scandinavia and made it about the same. The more important point is that you should assume that the characters are more familiar with the relevant details than you are—and if they say, "Hey, this number is the right number!" than you, as a reader, should accept that as being true within this story unless the story gives you some clue otherwise (like a character saying, "Ten million? That doesn't sound right").

I promise you that the resolution to this story will not be, "Oh, hey, Hel did the math wrong!" In fact, I promise you that the exact number of dwarves will never matter at all, for any reason, ever, and that every single character will continue to act in a way consistent with all of Hel's math being correct and true. And if that bothers you on some math-level of your brain, just pretend that the words "ten million" are a typo and it should say whatever number you would feel would be big enough to make Hel's stated plan "make sense" to you, personally. Because it really doesn't matter. It's not like I could have possibly picked a number that would please everyone anyway.

I was under the impression that you stated several times that characters don't know everything about how their own worlds work and could be wrong.

While I didn't expect Hel to be wrong in this precise case for some reasons (I believe you explicitely said that she was hyper-intelligent being a few days ago), I'm surprised by your statement!

[Kornaki]

Your numbers actually agree with my statement that I made very pessimistic assumptions. When you say there were 400million beings in 1200, then my assumptions of at least 50million in oots world seems indeed good as an absolute minimum. I am not wildly guessing btw., I am just not stating every piece of information that enters my assumption. I am too lazy for that, and you probably dont want to read it anyway.

We will, of course, ignore the fact that the OOTS world has existed for 1200 years, while the year 1200 AD occurred after humans had already existed for about 100 times that long.

Also, my impression has always been that OOTS world is about 5-10 times smaller than Earth in landmass.

[Cazero]

Funny how nobody here cared to include monstrous humanoids populations and goblinoids in particular in their numbers. They probably represent a much larger chunk than humans. We already know for sure that the Dark One claims most (if not all) goblinoids, he clearly isn't part of the Northern Pantheon, and goblinoids are known to breed a lot. So that's where a couple dozen millions souls go before being split between the three Pantheons.
There is also the concern of how relatively populated the Pantheons are. My bet would be that the Northern Pantheon has the less population, with all that frozen uninhabitable land and everything. Ergo, they get less souls, and Hel doesn't need to trump the others Pantheons.
And apparently, every dwarf belongs to the Northern Pantheon while humans are divided amongst three Pantheons, wich makes dwarves more important for them.

All this to say that numbers everyone came up with here are based on heavy asumptions and grossly inaccurate regardless of how applicable your real world sources are. Ten millions is still a lot.

Or Hel could already know for sure humans souls will tip the edge in her favor already and mention dwarves in particular just to annoy Thor. You know, gods can be petty like that.

[NerdyKris]

Did you guys watch Breaking Bad and argue endlessly about how Walt was making meth with the wrong chemicals, trying to rationalize how it worked? Or did you accept that the character was making it right in that universe, and your real world knowledge simply doesn't apply to the story?

Seriously. You're sitting here insisting on real world populations for a completely fictional world that has no resemblance to our world. A GOD just said what her plan is, and your argument is "I think she might be mistaken." Rich isn't saying "ignore plotholes", he's saying that when the story states something, unless you have reason to believe otherwise, assume it's true. And "In the real world 10 million isn't a lot" is not a good reason. You're going with "Hel is mistaken" instead of "The population is smaller than medieval earth".

In other words, the reason Walt is using those chemicals is because that's how meth is made in the Breaking Bad universe, not because Walt doesn't know how to make meth. You're basically arguing over what the implications of Walt's "not meth" are, instead of the real in universe meth Walt is making.

[Italian Hippy]

<snip> Because it really doesn't matter. It's not like I could have possibly picked a number that would please everyone anyway.

Yes. Yes, you could have. One kajillion bajillion zillion!


INSOLENCE! :D

(Let's see who gets the quote)

[The Giant]

Sometimes, this "poking at" is just playful exploration and speculation and sometimes it is done in a very critical way. I appreciate that for the creator it can be hard to distinguish between the two, especially as many fans don't make much effort to couch their speculations in non-critical ways.

This, yes. While I guess I can understand the desire to pull numbers apart just for fun, posting them where the author regularly responds and wording them as flat assertions that something doesn't work is the way to make me believe that you're criticizing my work. If that's not one's intent, a note to that effect would be nice.

Rich isn't saying "ignore plotholes", he's saying that when the story states something, unless you have reason to believe otherwise, assume it's true. And "In the real world 10 million isn't a lot" is not a good reason. You're going with "Hel is mistaken" instead of "The population is smaller than medieval earth"..

This, even more so. There's no plot hole, it's just that your assumptions are wildly off-base.

This is a world where traveling from one village to the next has a 1-in-6 chance of you being eaten by an owlbear or a gibbering mouther or something. Population densities have no correlation to the real world whatsoever. Heck, according to the Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting book for 3.5, Faerun has only 68 million human or demihuman inhabitants, and I would bet that OOTS world has a lot fewer people on the Northern Continent than FR has on Faerun, since Faerun is littered with cities comparatively.

[LoRdofCookIES]

You're forgetting that Northern Gods don't only get dwarven souls. They get souls from other races. And for these races, Hel doesn't get much souls when the deceased lacked an honor/dishonor system.
Humans have a way shorter lifespan and are likely to be way more numerous than dwarves. That should matter. Or would without the power burst Giant's speak of or whatever else reason :D

Actually I figured that most of the souls of the other continents would go to the other pantheons and further assumed that the fraction of non-dwarves that is claimed by the northeners wouldn't make much of a difference. I suppose one could assume either way since we don't know exactly how this works.

I don't think this argument is a point of significance any more though. :P

[Xzenu]

Returning to the basic premise of this thread...

Is there a reason why the souls of people who already died should not count?

YES!
When Hel specifically talked about INFLUX of souls, I assumed that the truth is something like this...

1. Getting new souls is sort of the income a God gets.
2. Gods also have expenses of various kinds, spending the cosmic energy or whatever they get from gaining new souls.
3. At any particular time, each God has a certain level of available resources. This "Cosmic savings Account" is based on past income AND past expenses.
4. The influx of 10 million souls would go directly into Hel's Cosmic Savings Account, giving her a moment of being the richest deity in the pantheon...
5. ...and this moment is not just any moment, but the extremely crucial moment of creating the new world. Yes, the moment in history when the CSA will be more important than ever!

This theory is very consistent with Hel knowing what she's talking about. And like The Giant pointed out, we have no reason to assume that she doesn't know what she's talking about.

[Quild]

Actually I figured that most of the souls of the other continents would go to the other pantheons and further assumed that the fraction of non-dwarves that is claimed by the northeners wouldn't make much of a difference. I suppose one could assume either way since we don't know exactly how this works.

I don't think this argument is a point of significance any more though. :P

Uh? There are non-dwarves on the Northern continent I believe.

Most of the High Priests are non-human and I'm quite certain that Roy comes from Northern continent himself.

[Bulldog Psion]

I think we can summarize the whole plan as "ten million souls! Big power-up! Huzzah!"

If Hel thinks that getting 10 million dwarven souls will give her that much of an edge, and the other gods think so too, then they do.

Maybe a dwarf soul is worth 10 other souls because of its hardihood, strength, and two ectoplasmic livers.

Whatever the case, she's figured out a plan that works. Either the numbers are big enough, or the souls have special properties, or it's an ideal time of the millenium to gather soul power, or whatever. Maybe 10 million dwarves going to one god will create a soul vortex that pulls in other souls, also.

There are a million possibilities -- if the imagination amends.

[Agi Hammerthief]

at the moment, in this our real world, more homo sapiens are alive than have ever lived before.
Pretty much no matter how far back you define homo sapiens has started to be homo sapiens.

In a young place like "OotS world" this should be even more likely when 10 Million dwarves have come to be alive at "story present".

So even if Hel got no souls at all in the past, 10 million is more than any other dwarf god ever got.

[Porthos]

at the moment, in this our real world, more homo sapiens are alive than have ever lived before.

This isn't remotely true, BTW.

108 billion people seems to be one well regarded estimate. Even if that specific number isn't right, the number of people who have ever lived is waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa ... aaaaaaaay beyond 10, 20, or even 30 billion people.

Mind, this has nothing to do with what goes on in OotSWorld. Everything Rich said seems entirely and logically consistent.

But this is one of those "well known facts" that is the opposite of a fact. Kinda like the people using 10% of their brain idea. Thought I should address it before this one took root here.

[Commander672]

I'm surprised Hel even cares about power. I'd say after centuries of having to wrestle every dishonored Dwarven Soul from Thor's loophole-abusing hands that just the prospect of 10 million clear-cut examples would be a cathartic win in her book.

[Tom Lehmann]

While I guess I can understand the desire to pull numbers apart just for fun, posting them where the author regularly responds and wording them as flat assertions that something doesn't work is the way to make me believe that you're criticizing my work. If that's not one's intent, a note to that effect would be nice.

Years of you stating that you don't consider yourself bound by the D&D rules or notions of "optimal" play while telling your story has resulted in some readers who want to discuss a story's event from a D&D PoV -- such as whether Roy can take down the HPoH in D&D terms -- to begin these speculations with a disclaimer like "I know Rich doesn't adhere to D&D's rules but..." I dunno if that makes those threads feel less critical and more speculative to you, but it's definitely a change from what went on before.

The existence of a "Class and Geekery" thread should make it clear that a certain % of your audience does enjoy such speculation.

Repeating a few hundred times that the OOTS setting exists strictly to serve the story and you don't spend a lot of time and energy trying to extrapolate "realistically" from Earth's history to a magical fantasy (whatever that means) may eventually produce similar disclaimers on threads that want to speculate about setting aspects.

The fact that this thread drew a lot of responses poking at assumptions and counter-assumptions makes it clear to me that there is a certain % of your audience that does enjoy such speculations.

[Warren Dew]

Also, my impression has always been that OOTS world is about 5-10 times smaller than Earth in landmass.

That was my impression too, and it neatly solves the issue.

[Myta]

I do not think that this would solve the issue.

There still should be too many dead people with the other gods, since there still should be many short lived humans in the northern continent... just look at the ratio of humans to dwarfs at the moot and then estimate generations for 1200 years. The core problem remains: unless there is a very strong population growth, the dead will strongly outnumber the living after few generations.

In my opinion there still is only one solution that completly solves that problem, and that is making the dead souls count less. A solution which is already in place as of #35

[littlebum2002]

Years of you stating that you don't consider yourself bound by the D&D rules or notions of "optimal" play while telling your story has resulted in some readers who want to discuss a story's event from a D&D PoV -- such as whether Roy can take down the HPoH in D&D terms -- to begin these speculations with a disclaimer like "I know Rich doesn't adhere to D&D's rules but..." I dunno if that makes those threads feel less critical and more speculative to you, but it's definitely a change from what went on before.

The existence of a "Class and Geekery" thread should make it clear that a certain % of your audience does enjoy such speculation.

Repeating a few hundred times that the OOTS setting exists strictly to serve the story and you don't spend a lot of time and energy trying to extrapolate "realistically" from Earth's history to a magical fantasy (whatever that means) may eventually produce similar disclaimers on threads that want to speculate about setting aspects.

The fact that this thread drew a lot of responses poking at assumptions and counter-assumptions makes it clear to me that there is a certain % of your audience that does enjoy such speculations.

The problem is, they're working backwards.

If Hel says "10 million dwarf souls will make me queen of the northern pantheon", a fun, non-judgmental-to-the-author speculation would be "let's extrapolate that out to estimate how many people there are in this world!", not "Assuming, based on absolutely no evidence whatsoever, that this world contains 500 million people, Hel's claim makes no sense".

The first is fun and actually pretty scientific, the second just makes a you-know-what of "u" and "me"

[dancrilis]

In my opinion there still is only one solution that completly solves that problem, and that is making the dead souls count less. A solution which is already in place as of #35

Even before the Gaint created a clarification we knew the following.

1. The Gods created souls.
2. Souls deteriorate into the plane that they end up at (at a maximum of around 200 years baring special circumstances).
3. Souls increase in power as they age.
4. There is no single evolution beginning point for races.

As such it it entirely possible that.
1. The amount of souls is stable.
2. Gaining a dwarven soul is more valuable than gaining a human soul.
3. All souls within the world were created at the beginning of the world, or are merely replacements for souls that returned to the planes.
4. Most dwarven souls are within living dwarves.

In this scenario Hel gaining 10million accounts for most of the Dwarven souls that have ever existed as 200 years to deteriorate is shorter than the average dwarven lifespan, assuming most dwarves reach old age and not needing to reach venerable - so that they do not risk a less than noble death.

[rbetieh]

I'm going to assume that means all dwarves are Scandinavian.

Usually I prefer to stay silent, but this comment just reminded me very much of an old Marvel What If where they made all the asgards speak in Norwegian accents. But in OOTS they speak with mild Scotty-esque Scot accents. This is something Hel must correct when she creates HelWorld. Go Hel! Know, Thor Won't!

[Corneel]

There is also the point to consider that not all people might be considered followers or worshipers of a specific god and thus might, like Roy, just end up in generic alignment afterlife and not in specific god's realm. Indeed, maybe even the majority of people fall in this category (lukewarm believers, people that spread their faith out among the whole pantheon and even then only on a "as needed" basis, people more into the Roman "do ut des" principle than worship & faith as we understand it).

[Bulldog Psion]

Note that she refers to "such an influx of resources" and says it "could" make her more powerful than Odin himself.

Referring to an influx pretty much shows an easy way around "but more are already dead" as an argument. The other gods' souls are already taken up providing infrastructure support, so to speak. Hel is getting 10 million dwarves front-loaded.

It's not just the numbers, it's also the concentration in a short period of time. Just think of the difference between the current purchasing power of a 60 year old who has earned $3 million over the course of their life -- say, 40 years of working -- and a young whippersnapper who has just won a cool $1 million in the lottery.

Making $75,000 a year and probably spending most of it, the 60-year-old probably has anywhere from nothing to $100k to $200k socked away. Respectable, but if they both place a bid to buy a company, the whippersnapper is almost guaranteed to beat the 60-year-old despite having earned only 1/3 as much money.

Edit: nor, in another sphere, is it always the biggest army that wins.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Double Edit: let's say that the dwarves have generations 60 years long (double that of humans). That means since the creation of the world 1,184 years ago, there have been approximately 20 generations.

Let's also assume that 1 million dwarves were created for the first generation, and each generation has added 500,000 by natural increase. That would mean a grand total of 94.5 million dwarves lived and died prior to the current 10 million.

Split between 17 gods, that works out to 5.5 million dwarven souls each.

Now, other races worship the Northern Gods, but they seem to be less closely involved with them than the dwarves. A lot of CG humans are going to end up just in the CG afterlife, not as part of "Thor's entourage."

If we count only dwarves, Hel might have almost twice as many souls as any of the other gods. Even with a couple of million human fanatics thrown in for some of the other divinities, I'd guess there's still a strong argument to be made she may be ahead regardless.

[Enkai]

I figured it had something to do with Death being Hel's portfolio. Like sure, the other gods might have more than 10 million souls, but because Hel is the goddess of death, dead souls are far more valuable to her.

That was mostly due to speculation as to why Thor and Loki might come up with a scheme to minimize the number of souls she would get.

Basically, if there is more death, Hel gets power that the other gods wouldn't, because they are less concerned with death (or go out of the way to prevent it in their followers, since most mortals usually tend to not like their life being shortened.)

The income is useless if you don't know how to use it.