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

[Mirtek]

This just doubles down. The gods are evil. They choose what their domains are like. They made the planes.

Not the divine realms of the deities, the very outer planes themselves. On which the deities are merely inhabitants too.

 

[Chaosmancer]

I find the following passage, from the Player's Guide to Faerun (page 164), to be suggestive with regard to that:



It then goes on to give overviews of the Zakharan planes, the Spirit World (of Kara-Tur), and the Maztican planes. The implication being that since those places had their own planar cosmologies, those who followed their gods weren't subject to the issue of whether or not they were False or Faithless.

Please note my use of affiliate links in this post.

So, this gets into some weird territory, if an Uthgardt Barbarian who believes in The Wolf Spirit ends up never having to face Kelemvor or the Wall, because he goes to a different cosmological framework.... then why would the Faithless even show up in front of Kelemvor to begin with? Why don't they show up in a different cosmological framework too?

 

[Mirtek]

The uthgartd is not the best example, because he would be within Kelemvor's jurisdiction. But as a worshipper of one of Uthgar's servitors he would be claimed by Uthgar

 

[TheSword]

So... This begs the question (in the informal sense) of what happens to the souls of the peoples outside of Faerun? In Kara-Tur, for instance, there are religions and philosophies without proper gods (or gods at all). What happens to them?

The celestial beaurocracy is found in the Outlands I believe from a long ago reading of the Planescape ‘neutrality’ boxed set. Souls from Kara-tur not beholden to another god go there.

 

[TheSword]

Dude. In your interpretation of the Wall of the Faithless . . . athiests don't simply get "nonexistence", they get millennia of horrific torture before being crushed out of existence. That isn't a better fate than those given over to the gods of evil, that is simply another horrific fate on par with being sent to Baator or one of the other lower planes.

There is no just and truly good person, or "god" that would allow such a thing to exist, if they had any power to end it.

I'd be okay with the concept in a campaign where the gods are right bastards and don't really care about "goodness" or about the welfare of mortals. But when they are supposed to be paragons of justice, light, yadda yadda . . . it's problematic.

Well they obviously don’t have the power to end it. The Wall of the Faithless is a part of the planes not a choice of any individual good god. If Torm could smash the wall of the Faithless then I’m sure he would.

I suspect they can try and correct it by instead converting atheists to their religion.

 

[Azzy]

I find the following passage, from the Player's Guide to Faerun (page 164), to be suggestive with regard to that:



It then goes on to give overviews of the Zakharan planes, the Spirit World (of Kara-Tur), and the Maztican planes. The implication being that since those places had their own planar cosmologies, those who followed their gods weren't subject to the issue of whether or not they were False or Faithless.

Please note my use of affiliate links in this post.

Sounds very convoluted and unnecessary.

 

[Chaosmancer]

The uthgartd is not the best example, because he would be within Kelemvor's jurisdiction. But as a worshipper of one of Uthgar's servitors he would be claimed by Uthgar

Mind explaining? I'm not super into that lore.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Also, I can't respond directly to Sword, but I would like to point out "they haven't therefore they can't" is a very poor argument. Plenty of people don't do things they are capable of, and the lack of action by people who should be acting is the entire problem.

 

[Flamestrike]

There is no just and truly good person, or "god" that would allow such a thing to exist, if they had any power to end it.

Ao (who designed the system) isnt Good, and neither is Kelemvor who polices it.

What does 'Good' have to do with anything here?

 

[Mirtek]

Mind explaining? I'm not super into that lore.

Uthgar is the patron deity of the Uthgardt barbarians. He conquered a couple of spirit animals and made them his servants. So when a tribe worships the gray wolf spirit, they worship Uthgar via a sanctioned proxy.

 

[Chaosmancer]

Ao (who designed the system) isnt Good, and neither is Kelemvor who polices it.

What does 'Good' have to do with anything here?

Which system do you mean?

Because the Wall was made by Myrkul, and AO was not involved. He isn't even mentioned in the relevant texts.

And, one of the things brought up is that the Good Gods (which is where Good is coming up) can't change the system, because the Evil and Neutral gods would prevent them from acting. But, Myrkul, an Evil God, did change the system and none of the good or neutral gods stopped him.

Which, if we assume that AO not being mentioned means he wasn't involved (a fair assessment supported by the texts) then the good gods acting to put the old system back in place would not be defying AO's will, because he didn't care about this in the first place.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Uthgar is the patron deity of the Uthgardt barbarians. He conquered a couple of spirit animals and made them his servants. So when a tribe worships the gray wolf spirit, they worship Uthgar via a sanctioned proxy.

Ah, I understand. Though, that does raise an interesting question.

It is fully possible in FR for a mortal to become a god. It has happened quite a few times. And worshipping proxies of a god counts...

So, how would you count worshipping a "living saint"? Would a man who is trying to become a god, and gathers a cult of worshippers, who truly believe in his divinity, be considered Faithless because they did not worship a god who is currently divine?

Or what about the people who still believed in and followed a god like Helm, whose followers didn't believe he was dead and kept worshipping him?