Dragonlance [Dragonlance/Faerun] Anyone here met any Cataclysm/Wall of the Faithless defenders?

[doctorbadwolf]

But, let us ask a separate question as well.

Why did we make an entire setting where the gods were not only important, but the player was punished for not worshiping them?

Look at Theros as a counter-example.

Are the Gods in Theros important? Yes, religion plays a massive role in that setting

What happens if you deny the gods? You get different bonuses

Because denying the Gods is an equally valid approach to a setting where they are so integral. In Theros, there is an inter-play between the faithful and those who deny the gods. It is important to the setting and both paths are valid.

In Faerun, if you deny the gods then the only thing that happens is that when you die you are told your soul is tormented then destroyed in a horrific manner.

One of these options is objectively better than the other.

All of this.

Also, I’ve run a campaign where the premise was that everyone was a memeber of a religious order of fighters in the same Church.
Because the whole group loved the premise when I presented it to them, and the story premise required that they all be part of the Church, and they knew that exploring questions of faith, obligation, and conflict between well meaning folk who don’t understand the situation and those who do understand, was going to be just as important as the actual primary conflict of the game.

Had anyone wanted to play an atheist, if their idea was interesting, I’d have found a place for it, and if I couldn’t I’d consider just telling a different story. Because as the DM, I’m not more important than the other players at the table.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

If you see FR primarily as a "milquetoast default fantasy setting" then I can see a really good argument that it should minimize or eliminate the grim and vile elements so as to become as inoffensive as possible. And yeah, that does seem to be how WotC is currently using the setting.

But I want there to be weird and WTF elements and even some grim and vile elements in my fantasy worlds. In my view, FR actually has quite a lot of those elements, partly because as a huge, canon-bloated setting, it just has quite a lot of elements full stop. Where I think we disagree is our evaluation of whether having grim and vile elements is a flaw or a feature in a fantasy world.

The big problem for me is that WotF is a massive, late-game (it's mid-1990s isn't it? Well after all other elements of the setting were pretty well-developed) imposition on the setting, that makes no sense with theme, tone, style, or even existing lore of the setting.

If it was just developing an extant theme of FR pantheons, I'd totally be with it. If they had not as this weird wall about "punishing" people, but just a purgatory or Greek underworld/hades or similar "place of forgotten spirits", that would fit entirely with the FR's general approach to religion, and would also be extremely cool for adventure potential (whereas WotF has very little - not none - but very little). But what they did instead is put in a weird, creepy coercive "punishment" thing, and say it's fine and cool and dandy and none of the gods are trying to do anything about - not even Ilmater. Which is just like... really bad writing.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

No, it isn't. That's a common misconception.

Forgotten Realms materials were very clear that if you didn't actively chose a patron god, you didn't end up among the Faithless. Instead, your soul would be picked up by a deity of appropriate alignment or relevant portfolio to the deceased.

This isn't true, and I'm not sure why you're claiming it's the case. If the materials are "extremely clear", cite the ones which say this "extremely clearly". No online source agrees with you.

 

[Alzrius]

The big problem for me is that WotF is a massive, late-game (it's mid-1990s isn't it?

Actually, the earliest reference to the Wall of the Faithless that I'm aware of is from the novel Waterdeep (book three of the Avatar Trilogy), which came out in October, 1989 (for reference the original 1E Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting came out in July of 1987):

The wall was constructed entirely of human bodies. Men and women were stacked fifty feet high, their bodies turned inward to face the interior of the city. The largest people gave the wall bulk and height, while the smaller ones chinked gaps and filled holes. They had all been sealed into place with a greenish mortar that reminded Midnight of solidified mold.

 

[Azzy]

The big problem for me is that WotF is a massive, late-game (it's mid-1990s isn't it? Well after all other elements of the setting were pretty well-developed) imposition on the setting, that makes no sense with theme, tone, style, or even existing lore of the setting.

If it was just developing an extant theme of FR pantheons, I'd totally be with it. If they had not as this weird wall about "punishing" people, but just a purgatory or Greek underworld/hades or similar "place of forgotten spirits", that would fit entirely with the FR's general approach to religion, and would also be extremely cool for adventure potential (whereas WotF has very little - not none - but very little). But what they did instead is put in a weird, creepy coercive "punishment" thing, and say it's fine and cool and dandy and none of the gods are trying to do anything about - not even Ilmater. Which is just like... really bad writing.

Yeah, or have the souls of the non-comitted (or whatever) be reincarnated until (if) they choose a god in one of their later lives.

 

[Hussar]

One of these options is objectively better than the other.

No, one of these options is different from the other. Not better. There's nothing wrong with a setting where you are expected to do something. You might not like it, but, that doesn't make it "objectively better". Just that one is a better fit for you than another. If a setting does not have a particular class, for example, does that make it objectively worse than a setting that does include that class?

Restrictions are not automatically bad.

 

[Hussar]

That isn’t the scenario you presented. FR games aren’t generally about faith, so assuming it will be about faith because it’s an FR game is unreasonable.

Further, the only scenario IME in which a DM would ever try to browbeat another player into taking a premise of the campaign seriously is a game wherein that premise wasn’t made clear in session 0, but rather foisted upon the group after we began.

So, you made a bunch of assumptions that weren't in my post in order to pick an argument with me? Ok. You win.

 

[Seramus]

Faiths & Avatars. TSR 1996, PG 2-3

Spoiler

All of these religions involve the worship of multiple powers within a pantheon, although not necessarily multiple pantheons. This is the normal state of affairs in the Realms. Thus, in abstract it is really ridiculous to think of one deity of the Realms becoming angry at a worshiper just for worshiping another deity.

What matters to a particular Realms power is not that a follower worships someone else—most everyone in the Realms worships several someone elses—but rather which other powers are venerated and which are appeased, and how serious a person’s offerings and worship are to other deities. Some pantheons even do not care if their worshipers also venerate deities from other pantheons.

[...]

Most folk have a handful of powers that they regularly venerate, only appeasing an unpleasant power when they are entering or engaged in a situation where that deity holds sway. Most people in the Realms also eventually settle on a sort of patron deity who they are most comfortable venerating and who they hold in the greatest reverence. A person’s patron deity is the power that eventually escorts that person’s spirit from the Fugue Plain, the place where spirits go right after people die, to its afterlife as a petitioner in the Outer Planes in the realm (or at least the plane) of its patron deity.

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 there 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).

At least in this book, you don’t get put into the wall for not having a patron.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

So, you made a bunch of assumptions that weren't in my post in order to pick an argument with me? Ok. You win.

Pot, kettle.

I also did no such thing.

 

[Eltab]

I saw the concept of The Wall of the Faithless as a way to quietly deal with a question that should hardly ever come up (atheists in a world where the gods intervenact with mortals, sometimes personally, on a daily basis).
One would think in such an environment being an atheist is like an IRL person claiming there is no such thing as gravity.
-Tangent-
Each god is a maximized upcast Phantasmal Force spell?
-end tangent-

FR already had a Dante's Inferno-esqe place (the Nine Hells) for Evil souls to be sent and punished for their misdeeds. There was 'design space' for people who were willfully neither good nor evil, and The Wall was what Ed or an author or somebody at TSR came up with.*
Personally I would have adapted an idea in Larry Niven's remake of The Inferno: if you don't believe in the gods, you are sent to a plane of nothingness, where there is not even the sensation of time passing. You presently succumb to what could be uncharitably described as sensory deprivation, but there is no torment or madness involved. Your soul goes through the reverse of the process of creation until only the ultimate components remain.

*Maybe inspired by listening to Pink Floyd?