D&D 5E Is the Wall of Faithless in 5e?

[Hussar]

/snip

And you’re still arguing from the conclusion that there needs to be a wall. There isn’t one in any other setting, even when there is an Asmodeous, and various other entities that want souls. The idea that refusing to worship anyone merits utter oblivion, in a setting where the gods are objectively not especially great, is just absurd.

You call it absurd, I call it entirely believable and actually functions to set Forgotten Realms apart from other settings. You said it yourself, there isn't any other setting that has a Wall of the Faithless. This is a particularly Forgotten Realms thing. Cool. FR needs stuff that sets it apart from other settings.

Strip out the wall and what? We've got another vanilla setting where if you do good deeds you go to your just reward? Whoopee. We already have a half dozen of those settings. What's the problem with letting Forgotten Realms actually be different.

It's actually kinda nice to see faith baked into a setting instead of just something tacked on if you happen to feel like it. Honestly, I think that more settings SHOULD be more distinct about what happens in the afterlife. Faith in Forgotten Realms MATTERS. Lack of faith in a patron diety matters. It's a BIG DEAL. Which nicely makes FR very different from other settings where, let's be honest, you could wrap yourself in tinfoil and jump up and down on hilltops crying all gawds are bastards and nothing happens.

 

[Seramus]

It also makes a nice adventure for your players, if you are of suitable level and inclination to protest the wall. Plenty of things represent great Injustice, and are ripe for players to come along and change the status quo.

 

[Zardnaar]

FR gods might not have a choice or maybe Mykul set it up.

I find people tend to over rate gods powers in D&D. They're not as powerful the Abrahamic one.

 

[Mecheon]

Being "Faithless" is a deliberate choice. You have to actually go out of your way to be faithless in Forgotten Realms and actively denounce the gods.

To quote NWN 2 on this, not knowing of the god's existence at all is enough reason to end up in the Wall. Or knowing they're around and then not picking your own one to stick with. If you're in some desolate corner of the Realms where they don't know about gods, well, tough, something you never knew or heard about has doomed you.

It also makes a nice adventure for your players, if you are of suitable level and inclination to protest the wall. Plenty of things represent great Injustice, and are ripe for players to come along and change the status quo.

I'm just saying, if you took out a fair number of the gods in FR, it'd be a much nicer place. Drow society could progress without Lolth basically playing her Sims game that is her micromanagement of Drow society for example.

 

[Hussar]

No one said it had to be nice or fair.

I mean, again, there are LOADS of real world religions that are even less fair than this. But, fortunately, since this is an RPG, there's lots that can actually be done about it. Either adventure to change things, or, if you're the DM, just don't use that bit of game lore. Or change it to suit your tastes. Make it your own.

But, force your tastes on everyone else just because you happen not to like something? That's a lot less groovy. It's not like the concept is bad, or poorly implemented, or illogical, or anything like that. It makes sense in context. It fits with the setting. And it sets the setting apart from other settings. Seems like a win to me, even if I personally might not like the concept.

 

[Nagol]

In a setting where the faithless would automatically go to Hell and become part of the enemy's armies, yeah, that's the worst of the worst. Heck, a CE mass murderer doesn't go to Hell in Forgotten Realms, he goes to whatever diety he worships. So, a mass murdering, evil as can be, worshipper of Loviatar doesn't go to Asmodeus at all. That worshipper goes to Loviatar.

Being "Faithless" is a deliberate choice. You have to actually go out of your way to be faithless in Forgotten Realms and actively denounce the gods.

It's funny. Folks often complain about how vanilla Forgotten Realms is, and how it lacks any identity, but, here, we see what happens when you actually have some identity. Folks get all bent out of shape because they actually have to make characters that engage in the setting (have faith) rather than yet another cypher character with no connections to the setting.

No, all you need to do is not pick a patron. In other words, anyone who actually acts like a pantheist goes to the wall. No denunciation necessary, (unless that was changed though I got some confirmation earlier in the thread that it isn't) .

That's the part I thought was mean/silly. "Ha! You failed to try to forge a personal relationship with any single deity in a universe with a large known pantheon with divergent portfolios that cut across many aspects of your life! That's a losing move! No afterlife for you!"

 

[Leatherhead]

Strip out the wall and what? We've got another vanilla setting where if you do good deeds you go to your just reward? Whoopee. We already have a half dozen of those settings. What's the problem with letting Forgotten Realms actually be different.

I get the sentiment here, but this is a bit of a misrepresentation.

It applies to Greyhawk, more or less. Though if you don't have a patron god it is significantly harder to actually get to the afterlife.
Mystara doesn't have gods and uses reincarnation sometimes.
You are not getting out of Ravenloft by something as easy as death.
Dragonlance I've never actually looked into, it's probably generic or unexplained , else I would have remembered something significant about it.
Spelljammer just borrows whatever afterlife happens to be closest at the time.
Dark Sun has The Grey which entraps the plane preventing any souls (and everything else) from getting in or out. Denying the entire world an afterlife.
Ghostwalk has the dead walking around next to you.
In Eberron everyone ends up in Dolurrh where they eventually fade into nothingness, or they merge with the Silver Flame and get to burn evil until their soul is burned out.
Nentir Vale has everyone hang out in the Shadowfell until the Raven Queen Decides what to do with them. After that nobody actually knows what happens.
Planescape uses basically the same cosmology as Greyhawk, but it's way more complicated.

You want it to be different than Greyhawk, because it's technically still the "default" for D&D. Though faith in Greyhawk would actually matter.

It's actually kinda nice to see faith baked into a setting instead of just something tacked on if you happen to feel like it.

That is why people like Planescape.

 

[Xenonnonex]

It's not like the concept is bad, or poorly implemented, or illogical, or anything like that. It makes sense in context. It fits with the setting. And it sets the setting apart from other settings. Seems like a win to me, even if I personally might not like the concept.

The Wall of the Faithless does require the entire setting to buy into it. Despite the fact the populace is kept wholly and utterly ignorant of it as you only get to find out about it after death the entire conceit of worship in the FR hinges on it. The gods are all in on this great lie. Even the goodly gods. "The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing"
Prayer and by association worshippers are just batteries to them.

But, force your tastes on everyone else just because you happen not to like something?

I do not see people forcing their tastes. I do see people calling out bad takes.

 

[Warpiglet]

If I had to bet...

Objections to to the wall really are about some real world concerns players are grappling with.

Why else care so much about the imaginary souls of imaginary people?

I am no better. I want to play fiend patron warlocks but always have to have a way to do so without selling my character's soul.

It's all ok. If it offends, CHANGE IT.

I don't care what sort of tea they drink at a certain town in the realms either (yawn). Don't be beholden to any setting if it gets in the way of fun.

As to "fair" there's a number of references to demons carrying people off to eat them in the abyss...Yikes.

This is about personal issues and taste. Greenwood is not at your table. Change it up

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

If a sinner soul goes to the faithless wall, or an infernal plane, but she is resurrected after.... wouldn't change her behavior to avoid the divine punishment with a new opportunity? Would you a sinner when you know History books tell demons opened a hellmouth to invade the kingdom but they were stopped by the crusaders? If you are a petitioner soul, would you choose a century of penance to get the true Heaven or a reincarnation with the risk to live again as a sinner who will have to been punished?

Who can't understand the concept of god, for example a baby, isn't atheist but the word should be ignosticst, igtheist or maybe nocognitivist.

I can't accept a mythology where the soul survives the death, but loses all memory and identity.