D&D 5E [Forgotten Realms] The Wall of the Faithless

[I'm A Banana]

I figured this could use its own thread.

One of the things that has always got under my skin about FR was that if you didn't pick a patron deity for your character, your afterlife was to get stuck in a wall, regardless of your actions in life. The earliest mention I can find of this is the 2e-era Faiths & Avatars:

Those who firmly deny any faith or have only given lip service most of their lives and never truly believed are known as the Faithless after death. They are formed into a living wall around the City of Strife — Kelemvor, the new lord of the dead, may soon rename it — in the realm of the dead in Oinos in the Gray Waste and left thete until they dissolve. The unearthly greenish mold that holds the wall together eventually destroys them. The False, those who intentionally betrayed a faith they believed in and to which they made a personal commitment, are relegated to eternal punishment in the City of Strife after their case is ruled upon by Kelemvor in the Crystal Spire (Kelemvor's abode in the City of Strife).

3e confirms that this is still a thing:

Everyone in Faerun knows that those who die without having a patron deity to send a servant to collect them from the Fugue Plane at their death spend eternity writhing in the Wall of the Faithless or disappear into the hells of the the devils or the infernos of the demons

4e, perhaps unsurprisingly, doesn't seem to mention it. 4e liked to buck tradition.

In 5e, it's still a thing, though I guess Kelemvor has a bit more flexibility:

Souls that are unclaimed by the servants of the gods are judged by Kelemvor, who decides the fate of each one. Some are charged with serving as guides for other lost souls, while others are transformed into squirming larvae and cast into the dust. The truly false and faithless are mortared into the Wall of the Faithless, the great barrier that bounds the City of the Dead, where their souls slowly dissolve and begin to become part of the stuff of the Wall itself.

My main issue here is that this is basically a punishment in the lore for any character whose player doesn't want to bother wading through the massive list of deities and picking one that they like. No matter how noble their deeds, no matter how many lives they save, no matter how much good they do, no matter how many evil plots they stop, a character can't get a good afterlife without checking a box on a form that says "Prayed to a god sometimes." The BEST a character can hope for is to be a guide, which basically means escorting others to paradises that they'll never actually be a part of.

Am I alone in thinking this bit of lore is kind of hard to swallow? This reads, in-fiction, like a divine protection racket, where Kelemvor determines if you get to suffer for eternity based on how much his buddies like you. At the table, this is basically an assured Bad Ending for your character, unless you do the homework required to pick one god out of FR's vast and unwieldy menagerie of them.

I mean, the first thing I want to do when hearing about this wall is to have an adventure all about destroying it and slapping the collective pantheon in its face for thinking this was a good idea. Even supposedly "good" deities like Mystara and Ilmater are totally on board with punishing everyone who doesn't massage their egos on a regular basis.

It's possible I'm out in left field on this (my background as a student of religions might make it particularly glaring), but what do you think?

 

[JohnLynch]

I love Faiths and Avatars and have used it since I first gaming in the Forgotten Realms back in 2008. However with that said, the Wall of the Faithless is one of the goofiest ideas I've ever heard and (IMO) doesn't really reflect how a polytheistic society works. In My Realms it doesn't exist and none of my players have ever been worried by it or had their character's behaviour influenced by it.

 

[Mouseferatu]

Am I alone in thinking this bit of lore is kind of hard to swallow? This reads, in-fiction, like a divine protection racket, where Kelemvor determines if you get to suffer for eternity based on how much his buddies like you.

Honestly, that sounds to me like exactly the sort of thing certain pantheons would do, based on real-world mythology. How many people did the Olympians screw over because someone forgot to mention one god out of an entire litany, when making a sacrifice?

Now, whether it's in-character for certain of the FR gods, particularly the good ones, is certainly arguable. But I don't think, as a concept in and of itself, it's necessarily any worse than a lot of mythological precedent.

 

[Shasarak]

It's possible I'm out in left field on this (my background as a student of religions might make it particularly glaring), but what do you think?

I think that if you live in a world that absolutely and provably has Deities (like the Forgotten Realms) then why would you not have a Patron Deity?

And if you choose not to have a Patron Deity then do you care where you go when you die and if you do, then where do you want to go?

 

[Tony Vargas]

4e, perhaps unsurprisingly, doesn't seem to mention it. 4e liked to buck tradition.

The 4e Afterlife is as screwed up as everything else in the PoL non-setting. As below, so Above, I guess. The Astral Sea after the Dawn War is about as put-together as Europe right after WWII. Dead gods & primordials float around, astral Domains are disconnected, and even the Faithful don't automatically end up in them, many just manifest in the barren 'sea' itself, or in island-realms surrounding the Domains and risk being picked off by Devils or Githyanki. Even before getting to the Astral Sea, everyone gets processed through the Shadowfell where the Raven Queen takes her cut...

My main issue here is that this is basically a punishment in the lore for any character whose player doesn't want to bother wading through the massive list of deities and picking one that they like. (my background as a student of religions might make it particularly glaring), but what do you think?

Are there a lot of religions that have anything to say about the afterlife at all, but grant that unbelievers will be just fine in it?

 

[Sunseeker]

As an IRL atheist, the Wall of the Faithless is actually one reason why I will never play FR (unless it's a modded setting where it isn't a thing). It was wholly created by the gods to ensure that they got worshippers and remained gods, which is an AMAZING reason not to worship a single one of them. I absolutely can't stand it. That's not to say I don't sometimes make character who worship a given god, but they don't do it because the alternative is being sent to hell. They do it for real reasons.

Worse, people are punished to the Wall for only giving lip-service to their gods, so not only do you have to "check a box" but you have to earnestly follow their rules, which is absolute BS in my book.

 

[S'mon]

Honestly, that sounds to me like exactly the sort of thing certain pantheons would do, based on real-world mythology. How many people did the Olympians screw over because someone forgot to mention one god out of an entire litany, when making a sacrifice?

Now, whether it's in-character for certain of the FR gods, particularly the good ones, is certainly arguable. But I don't think, as a concept in and of itself, it's necessarily any worse than a lot of mythological precedent.

In FR Polytheistic deities force everyone to be Monotheists, holding only one deity as patron - it's the exact opposite of real polytheism where you need/should worship EVERY deity at the appropriate times.

 

[Parmandur]

Dunno, sounds fair? In my game, the Cleric did not even bother to choose a god, she just hand-waved that she was praying to "the gods.". Actual people in the Realms are going to appease the gods, because well duh. Players don't need to do much to establish that themselves, just note it as a character trait and play it as relevant. Apply a liberal dose of handwavium.

To be honest, I could do without the gods info, and just put a Church of the Crystal Dragon style generic religion in place, not a big deal.

 

[Parmandur]

In FR Polytheistic deities force everyone to be Monotheists, holding only one deity as patron - it's the exact opposite of real polytheism where you need/should worship EVERY deity at the appropriate times.

That's...not really what the books say?

 

[Mouseferatu]

In FR Polytheistic deities force everyone to be Monotheists, holding only one deity as patron - it's the exact opposite of real polytheism where you need/should worship EVERY deity at the appropriate times.

I wasn't saying they were the same, just that there's plenty of mythical precedent for the gods being real rectal-orifices to people who don't worship them, or don't worship them "properly."