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

[Argyle King]

And down the philosophical rabbit hole we go. Unfortunately, despite the impressive power the gods wield in FR, and the presence of magic both divine and arcane, and even the text directly stating that they are gods, for the (imaginary) inhabitants of that world they are really still at square 1.

Also, the resemblance of the FR faithless to real-world agnostics and atheists is too strong to ignore. The fact that the setting goes out of their way to give them a special, shortened time-limit on resurrection and proposes a rather bleak and punishing afterlife for them comes off as having a hostile attitude. This may put off some players.

From what I've read, that hostile attitude is explained via the lore. It is intentional -a product of gods who tangibly exist in a setting and have a vested interest in not allowing people to gain certain afterlife benefits without needing to pay reverence to said gods. Yes. There is a hostile attitude, and the reason for it is explained.

That's not to say that I think the lore is necessarily good. It's not my cup of tea. Though, from the perspective of in-game logic, it makes some amount of sense.

Do I care if the concept is removed? No, I don't.

At the same time, if it were part of a game in which I played (or DMed,) I would see it as an opportunity to explore a narrative story more-so than an obstacle. I imagine there would be in-game beings and creatures with a vested interest in dismantling the wall or in bypassing the limitations of the wall.

 

[Raduin711]

From what I've read, that hostile attitude is explained via the lore. It is intentional -a product of gods who tangibly exist in a setting and have a vested interest in not allowing people to gain certain afterlife benefits without needing to pay reverence to said gods. Yes. There is a hostile attitude, and the reason for it is explained.

This would be what has been termed as the "Thermian Argument." It's named for the Thermians in Galaxy Quest, an alien race that has no concept of fiction, and treats all texts as historical.

In short, the Forgotten Realms isn't real. They could have constructed the afterworlds of FR any way they liked. In-unviverse rationale for it doesn't really change anything.

 

[Olrox17]

Its not really comparable. Taxes, even in a feudal society, were part of a reciprocal relationship. You pay taxes, the lord protects you. If either broke the deal they would be in trouble.

There's no reciprocity in this case. Where's the wall for gods who don't do well by their faithful?

There is no wall of “bad gods”, but there’s Ao rule of worship. The power of a diety is derived from the number of its worshippers and their zeal. So, gods who do a crappy job will see their worshippers leave them and flock to better gods, costing them great power.

It works.

 

[Mirtek]

In short, the Forgotten Realms isn't real. They could have constructed the afterworlds of FR any way they liked. In-unviverse rationale for it doesn't really change anything.

And they chose to give it the wall as an unique distinction. One one hand people complain that all settings are alike, but as soon as a setting dares to have something special other people complain that it's controversial/offending and needs to be taken out.


On Faerun it's obvisously the god of death's job to handle unclaimed souls. And he seems to be free to handle them however he sees fit, except that he's not allowed to claim them for himself. So did Jergal just let them pass by? Did he do something other that was equally bad?


The whole "only after ToT they became dependent on mortal worship" is kind of iffy because deities everywhere else are dependent on worship too and have been so long before the so called ToT took place on some unimportant backwater world. Even in FR deities have risen and faded due to lack of worship milenia before the ToT. So it can't have been an entirely new concept to them.

 

[Chaosmancer]

I don't have any emotional connection to the wall. I feel no need to defend it. I had no idea it even existed until after other people started to mention it. (I typically do not play in Forgotten Realms.)

However, I also do not fully understand being offended by it. (Which isn't to say that people aren't offended; I'm simply struggling to understand why.) As I understand it, divine beings are very real and tangible in Forgotten Realms. So, it makes some amount of in-setting logic that they would also be able to enforce some sort of tangible method for enforcing religion*.

*I didn't use the word "faith" because I do not believe it can apply in this circumstance. The people in the world have confirmed knowledge of divine beings influencing the setting.

All that being said, the little bit of knowledge I have picked up over the past few days (from FR threads) lean me toward believing that most of the gods in FR are kinda dbags -even those who are "good."

I guess can understand removing the concept so as to reduce the amount of setting elements which may be viewed as controversial (in any conceivable way) in contemporary society. I cannot say that I fully understand the why of somebody being offended in this instance, but, if it's viewed as offensive by the game's audience, I believe the game is overall better without it.

Still, I find myself curious to see how far the effort to sanitize D&D goes; mentally reconciling the idea of killing other sentient beings for loot (and advancement) with real-life society's morals is going to be interesting to watch.

The bolded is really the key here isn't it?

What happens if you insult Mystra? Nothing. Maybe if you are in her temple or something she might take notice, but followers of different divine beings insult each other all the time.

Killing her followers? Nothing. The churches war with each other all the time.

What happens if you don't worship Mystra? Nothing, as long as you worship some other god.

What happens if you don't worship any of them? Your soul is mortared into the Wall until it is ground to dust for your crimes.

And remember the wall was made before the Gods fed off of mortal worship, so it was a punishment for a crime that had no consequence. Choosing not to worship the Gods had about as much impact on your and the world's daily life as prefering coffee over tea. And yet, it is punished. There are far greater insults you can give the Gods, and no special punishment for them, but if you choose not to take part in the rituals of worship, if you chose to not pray, if you choose to not revere any god at all.... that is what gets a special horrific punishment?

It simply breaks logic, it doesn't make sense, and it leads to so many problems in the afterlives. What about the Gith? They do not worship gods, the Githzerai worship no one and the Githyanki worship a Lich-Queen. What about those who worship the Aboleths or Mindflayers? If you were a mental slave to the Mindflayers since birth, worshipping them as your god, you get put in the wall? What about the Kuo-Toa? They make their own gods by worshipping random things, how did that work that they could worship "not gods" but create gods which then I suppose gets them around the Wall.

The more people who can find who wouldn't worship the Gods, the weirder and weirder the wall appears to be.

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And they chose to give it the wall as an unique distinction. One one hand people complain that all settings are alike, but as soon as a setting dares to have something special other people complain that it's controversial/offending and needs to be taken out.

Look, you can believe that the Wall is an example of FR "daring to have something special" but a stupid idea is a stupid idea. And there are plenty of "special" ideas and aspects of various settings that I do like, and plenty of bog-standard choices that I find tedious and boring.

On Faerun it's obvisously the god of death's job to handle unclaimed souls. And he seems to be free to handle them however he sees fit, except that he's not allowed to claim them for himself. So did Jergal just let them pass by? Did he do something other that was equally bad?

We are never told. Does what Jergal used to do matter for what Myrkul did do and what Kelemvor is continuing to do? i don't really see how.

The whole "only after ToT they became dependent on mortal worship" is kind of iffy because deities everywhere else are dependent on worship too and have been so long before the so called ToT took place on some unimportant backwater world. Even in FR deities have risen and faded due to lack of worship milenia before the ToT. So it can't have been an entirely new concept to them.

Well, if you are right then AO is an idiot who basically did the same thing as telling a bunch of humans "As punishment for not doing your jobs, you now have to eat food to survive."

I mean, cool man, I had to do that anyways, so that is less a punishment and more just a crazy guy yelling at me for no reason. Maybe if we were really bad he'd tell us we have to breath air too.



So, since AO is not supposed to be that incompetent, stupid, and ineffectual, I think it makes far more sense to take the stated lore of the game at its word. Before the Time of Troubles, the Gods did not require the worship of mortals. Afterwards, they did, and that was a result of AO punishing them.

 

[Voadam]

So, since AO is not supposed to be that incompetent, stupid, and ineffectual, I think it makes far more sense to take the stated lore of the game at its word. Before the Time of Troubles, the Gods did not require the worship of mortals. Afterwards, they did, and that was a result of AO punishing them.

The lore is even more messed up. In the 1e Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting boxed set in the section on religion (page 10) it says:

The gods of the Realms, also called Powers, are important beings; they grant magical spells to their worshippers, involve themselves in earthly dealings, and grow or diminish in personal power in relation to the number of mortal worshippers they possess. Clerics in the service of a god will advance only if they please the god, by remaining faithful to the gods rules and aims, and acting as the god wishes.

So before the Time of Troubles, the FR gods' personal powers were already tied to the number of mortal worshippers they possessed.

 

[Argyle King]

This would be what has been termed as the "Thermian Argument." It's named for the Thermians in Galaxy Quest, an alien race that has no concept of fiction, and treats all texts as historical.

In short, the Forgotten Realms isn't real. They could have constructed the afterworlds of FR any way they liked. In-unviverse rationale for it doesn't really change anything.

It's not the same argument, and here is why:

Whether or not it is real to you or me is irrelevant to whether or not it is "real" to a character within the setting.

In the setting of Galaxy Quest, Thermians believe in things which are objectively (in-setting) known to be false.

In the setting of Forgotten Realms, the Wall is connected to concepts which are objectively (in-setting) known to be true. It's just as real as dragons, elves, and magic.


I would posit that, if I approach the game from the stance of everything being fake, the PCs (and the players controlling them) are always the villains. I posit this because -if the assumption is that everything is fake- it would mean that there are no such thing as monsters, and the players are engaging in a mental exercise of murdering other beings for the selfish reasons of personal gain and gratification.

I notice that (I think) you edited your comment to add that the Wall may push some players away from the game. I'll note that I addressed that in an earlier comment.

I can see how the concept may rub people the wrong way. Alternatively, I can also see it as a built-in point of contention and conflict to help drive the narrative and motivate characters in a roleplaying game. There are a lot of ways the concept could be creatively explored through narratives.

Personally, I don't have an emotional attachment to Forgotten Realms, so I don't care if the Wall exists.

 

[Argyle King]

The bolded is really the key here isn't it?

What happens if you insult Mystra? Nothing. Maybe if you are in her temple or something she might take notice, but followers of different divine beings insult each other all the time.

Killing her followers? Nothing. The churches war with each other all the time.

What happens if you don't worship Mystra? Nothing, as long as you worship some other god.

What happens if you don't worship any of them? Your soul is mortared into the Wall until it is ground to dust for your crimes.

And remember the wall was made before the Gods fed off of mortal worship, so it was a punishment for a crime that had no consequence. Choosing not to worship the Gods had about as much impact on your and the world's daily life as prefering coffee over tea. And yet, it is punished. There are far greater insults you can give the Gods, and no special punishment for them, but if you choose not to take part in the rituals of worship, if you chose to not pray, if you choose to not revere any god at all.... that is what gets a special horrific punishment?

It simply breaks logic...

From what I've read over the past day or so, the god of death was pressured into building the wall by other gods. Some of the other gods noticed that mortals had started to ignore them and/or* to only worship the god of death. Essentially, the gods of Forgotten Realms were (as I stated in an earlier post) kinda d-bags.

*The few things I've read aren't consistent on the exact story.

I'm not arguing that the concept is written well -or in a logical manner. However, that can be either a bug or a feature, depending upon point of view. In my head, I have ideas about how I could use the general concept, around which to build plot and adventure. But, as stated several times, I have no emotional connection to whether or not the Wall exists.

 

[Chaosmancer]

It's not the same argument, and here is why:

Whether or not it is real to you or me is irrelevant to whether or not it is "real" to a character within the setting.

In the setting of Galaxy Quest, Thermians believe in things which are objectively (in-setting) known to be false.

In the setting of Forgotten Realms, the Wall is connected to concepts which are objectively (in-setting) known to be true. It's just as real as dragons, elves, and magic.


I would posit that, if I approach the game from the stance of everything being fake, the PCs (and the players controlling them) are always the villains. I posit this because -if the assumption is that everything is fake- it would mean that there are no such thing as monsters, and the players are engaging in a mental exercise of murdering other beings for the selfish reasons of personal gain and gratification.

I notice that (I think) you edited your comment to add that the Wall may push some players away from the game. I'll note that I addressed that in an earlier comment.

I can see how the concept may rub people the wrong way. Alternatively, I can also see it as a built-in point of contention and conflict to help drive the narrative and motivate characters in a roleplaying game. There are a lot of ways the concept could be creatively explored through narratives.

Personally, I don't have an emotional attachment to Forgotten Realms, so I don't care if the Wall exists.

I think you miss the point trying to be made.

In a lot of ways, Fiction must be more real than reality, because Fiction is intentional.

We actually see this a lot in media that we end up disliking. Why is Hans a bad villain in Frozen? Is it because it is completely implausible that a man can emotionally manipulate a woman for his own self-interest? No. But, we as the audience don't see his betrayal coming, nothing really strongly hints at it, it just... happens.

Imagine for a moment that you are reading a story about political intrigue. A new, young King of a deeply troubled state. You follow his idealistic journey through politics, his trials as he finds nobles he can trust and begins to build a better nation like he promised. And then in the last chapter he falls of his horse, breaks his neck and dies, undoing all his work and leaving none of the plot proceeding it to be relevant.

It feels dissatisfying, it feels wrong. Why did we follow this story if it was all pointless? Is it "realistic"? Sure, but Fiction can't be random, it is written intentionally.

And so, it doesn't matter whether or not the characters see the Wall as Real, because we know it was intentionally created by an author outside the setting. And we know that that author could have chosen any set-up, they could have altered every aspect of the world to fit a more coherent vision.

It is, in the end, a choice. Unlike reality.

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From what I've read over the past day or so, the god of death was pressured into building the wall by other gods. Some of the other gods noticed that mortals had started to ignore them and/or* to only worship the god of death. Essentially, the gods of Forgotten Realms were (as I stated in an earlier post) kinda d-bags.

*The few things I've read aren't consistent on the exact story.

I'm not arguing that the concept is written well -or in a logical manner. However, that can be either a bug or a feature, depending upon point of view. In my head, I have ideas about how I could use the general concept, around which to build plot and adventure. But, as stated several times, I have no emotional connection to whether or not the Wall exists.

I understand you don't have an emotional connection, but I would like to correct your misunderstanding.

The events you describe about the Gods pressuring the god of Death? That really had nothing to do with the Wall.

You are talking about Kelemvor, who had offered a paradise to those souls he judged worthy, whether or not they had done things the way their individual gods had wanted. This supposedly caused problems. As part of that intiative, he stopped using the wall.

Then, after a stupid "revelation" you ca read a few posts back, he reverses his decision, coming to the conclusion that if he rewards good people in death, then everyone will suicide and die if they are good, but remain if they are cowardly and evil, and thus the world will fail. As part of him going back to the old ways, he resumes using the Wall. Specifically sending a High Priest into the Wall, because another God drove that priest mad, and that priest then denounced the existence of the gods before his death.


But the actual creation of the wall occured easily 1300 years before those events, when the God Myrkul... just created the wall. For no reason except to be cruel. And, none of the gods pressured him into not doing that, while they did pressure Kelemvor.

And this is our fundamental problem, the wall seems to have been arbitrarily created as a torture device by an old god. But now it is being billed as a fundamental aspect of reality which should not be challenged.

 

[Argyle King]

I think you miss the point trying to be made.

In a lot of ways, Fiction must be more real than reality, because Fiction is intentional.

(...and other stuff...)

And this is our fundamental problem, the wall seems to have been arbitrarily created as a torture device by an old god. But now it is being billed as a fundamental aspect of reality which should not be challenged.

I can buy into that argument.

I'm likely one of the only people on Earth to have not seen Frozen, but I understand what you're saying.

I see value in verisimilitude and consistent logic. I have spoken in support of such things elsewhere. In other threads, I have used professional wrestling as an example: despite being fantasy, it is presented as "real" and (when done well) makes an attempt to allow the audience to buy in to a coherent presentation and narrative.