Rebirth in DnD

[Hejdun]

So imagine, say, a religion or a cult that believes that when a being dies, it is reborn as a new creature based on what it did during your life. If you were brutal and cruel, maybe you're reborn as an orc, or if you were noble and wise you are reborn as an elf. If you accomplished great deeds in your life, maybe you are reborn as a God, and thus you have your classic "hero ascends to Godhood" scenario.

What makes this more interesting is the interaction between sentient species. Perhaps this religion believes that particularly meek or shy people are reborn as gnomes or halflings (thus why they're short and easy to overlook). There you have a reason why humans would be condescending towards the shorter races.

It also gives you a reason why good characters would want to slay evil creatures. It's out of pity. Their negative karma resulted in being reborn as a vicious race, and by killing them, you are releasing them from their negative karma by letting them be reborn as something else. Thus, killing even orc children is a A Good Thing To Do (TM) because it is letting them be reborn again, possibly as something better.

Now, this doesn't necessarily have to happen. You just have to have people believe that it does. It'd be an interesting cause to champion as, say, a Crusader.

Anyone have any critiques or suggestions on how to develop this further? Could this be a basis for religion in a homebrew?

 

[Ry]

It also gives you a reason why good characters would want to slay evil creatures. It's out of pity. Their negative karma resulted in being reborn as a vicious race, and by killing them, you are releasing them from their negative karma by letting them be reborn as something else. Thus, killing even orc children is a A Good Thing To Do (TM) because it is letting them be reborn again, possibly as something better.

OK, that makes me shudder for reasons I can't go into without violating the politics rules. Suffice to say this argument was actually used at one point justifying something in the real world.

 

[Hejdun]

OK, that makes me shudder for reasons I can't go into without violating the politics rules. Suffice to say this argument was actually used at one point justifying something in the real world.

That's part of the point. It gives a very powerful reason to encourage genocide, even among otherwise good creatures. It's like a divine sanctioning of racial tension. Lots of opportunity for role playing.

 

[Ry]

I sent you an e-mail, but I think that this discussion crosses the no religion line.

 

[Hejdun]

I sent you an e-mail, but I think that this discussion crosses the no religion line.

My sincere apologies if I have, or if I have offended anyone. (Incidentally checking the Rules results in a 404 error, so I can't check specifically what the rules say.) I only included the bit about Buddhism so that people could understand where the idea came from. I'll try editing my post to cut out anything any references to real-life religions.

EDIT: And I hadn't realized that my e-mail attached to this profile is out of date, so you'll have to send it to my newly updated e-mail address in my profile for me to get it. My apologies, I hadn't realized this account was so old (2002?!).

 

[Kahuna Burger]

So imagine, say, a religion or a cult that believes that when a being dies, it is reborn as a new creature based on what it did during your life. If you were brutal and cruel, maybe you're reborn as an orc, or if you were noble and wise you are reborn as an elf. If you accomplished great deeds in your life, maybe you are reborn as a God, and thus you have your classic "hero ascends to Godhood" scenario.

Hrm, the problem I see with that theory is that it basicly sets up a reincarnation spiral. If you behave peacefully, you get to be reborn as a race where it's easier to be peaceful, if you behave brutally you get reborn as a race where anything but brutality could get your life cut short before you make any karmic inroads. Behave meekly and you get reborn in a body where people will not take you as seriously if you try not to be meek.... I'm not saying such a belief couldn't catch on, but there would be detractors...

One interesting thought in a cyclical reincarnation worldview meeting D&D is what happens when you get Raised? Does your new body die at whatever age it has achieved prior to the old you being brought back?

 

[Hejdun]

Hrm, the problem I see with that theory is that it basicly sets up a reincarnation spiral. If you behave peacefully, you get to be reborn as a race where it's easier to be peaceful, if you behave brutally you get reborn as a race where anything but brutality could get your life cut short before you make any karmic inroads. Behave meekly and you get reborn in a body where people will not take you as seriously if you try not to be meek.... I'm not saying such a belief couldn't catch on, but there would be detractors...

Well, part of that relates to the part I edited out, so it makes somewhat less sense now. There are a few ways to go about it though. One way is that only certain creatures generate karma (perhaps only the main sentient races?). Or perhaps once a (non-human) creature is slain, he automatically defaults back to human? Which would explain why there are so many more humans than other creatures.

One interesting thought in a cyclical reincarnation worldview meeting D&D is what happens when you get Raised? Does your new body die at whatever age it has achieved prior to the old you being brought back?

There could be a period of time (in the span of a few weeks) where your soul just chills out in a sort of waiting realm and hasn't gone on yet. After this period, it's impossible to Raise Dead. Really the only thing this changes is the time limits on Raise spells.

 

[Nifft]

I see nothing offensive, but maybe I'm missing something.

I think you do misinterpret the role of Dharma / Karma, though.

Take a look at the Bhagavad Gita. You'll see Arjuna fighting against fate, and Krishna conjoining him to take up his role. Why is Arjuna fighting fate? Because he doesn't want to kill his friends and teachers. Why does Krishna want him to kill them? Because the war is fated to happen.

Both sides of the conflict are acting in accordance with their dharma, and thus increasing their good karma. Neither side is morally pure. Thus you can have conflict between "good" people where they kill each other, and yet neither is acting against the will of the gods. Neither side is "vile" or worthy of genocide -- and genocide isn't the point.

With a system where Orcs and Humans are simply fated to battle -- thanks to their dharma -- you could have morally justified battles without the usually crap about one side being sub-human life being worthy of genocide.

Thus you can get a beautiful hypocrisy: it's perfectly cool to kill orc warriors in battle, but wrong and distasteful to kill orc babies. War isn't total war because the gods didn't command it -- your duty is to fight, not to murder. Yay lack of moral murk!

Cheers, -- N

 

[Kae'Yoss]

In Rokugan, reincarnation is part of the general belief. In the d20 material, there's even a reincarnation spell that kinda takes the place of resurrection spells (which aren't allowed)

 

[Samnell]

One interesting thought in a cyclical reincarnation worldview meeting D&D is what happens when you get Raised? Does your new body die at whatever age it has achieved prior to the old you being brought back?

That's not as big a concern as it may first appear. Unless the number of living (or ensouled) beings is an absolute invariant, there's plenty of room for the souls of the recently departed to hang around a little while. Maybe the Celestial Bureaucracy is doing their paperwork, or this is when they're flushed of memories of the old life. If the soul of the departed is instantly incarnated again, we must assume it's not popped into a full-grown body unless there are loads and loads of soulless husks waiting around for it or the soul is able to displace the old resident soul. Neither of these seems very likely on a grand scale.

That leaves us when the question of when the religion holds that the soul first sticks. The real world offers numerous opinions on this matter. Once that happens, there may or may not be moral issues about yanking it back into a previous incarnation if such a thing is still possible. If the soul is considered the exclusive criteria for membership in the moral community, things might be difficult. However, if the soul's identity is held to be static across incarnations, then snuffing the present incarnation to revive a prior incarnation may not be an issue.

...and that's as far as I can get without hitting up extra-hard against the religion and politics rule.