So is Bane or Cyric. So since the good deities are not constantly assaulting their realms, they are allowing their evil and thus are complicit in it?
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Dragonlance [Dragonlance/Faerun] Anyone here met any Cataclysm/Wall of the Faithless defenders?
- Thread starter Libertad
- Start date
Chaosmancer
Legend
I don't particularly want to extrapolate this out to all things. All gods share an interest in the afterlife by collecting the souls of their worshipers. It is a shared point of contact.
And many things that you are likely refering to exist in the mortal realms, but the wall exists solely in the divine realms.
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sigh
Yes, it is entirely possible that these Soul Larva are uniquely made from pure good people who are unclaimed instead of from the souls of evil individuals like Soul Larva are always presented as.
Your morning sausage could also be made from dogs and cats instead of pork. But since we generally refer to ground pork when making sausage, I think it is fair to assume that holds true even if you buy from a new location.
You are basically trying to take the lack of them being specific and assuming that these Soul Larva are not like Soul Larva. Which is a really hard claim to make, since we assume that things that are named the same are the same unless told otherwise.
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Which is why for 37,000 years I never had the Wall of the Faithless, because they wrote the rules and decided to punish mortals.
In fact, Myrkul a former mortal known for wanting to spread fear and dread was chosen to be their spokesperson by building the Wall for all of them, not just for his own reasons in his own realm....
Oh, wait.
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Are you trying to argue that none of the Gods of Good oppose the plans and actions of Cyric or Bane? Because that doesn't match my reading of the Realms at all.
cbwjm
Seb-wejem
And you're trying to use outside knowledge to assign an alignment to them. This is just going to be one of those occasions where we have to agree to disagree, I clearly think you're wrong in assigning them as bound for the Abyss, you're assuming that because they share a name that they are.
Well, Bane and Cyric exist and Tyr, Torm & Co. aren't storming their realms on a daily basis. Yet you agree that they oppose them. So why are you accuse them of not opposing the Wall just because they are not trying to tear it down?
SehanineMoonbow
Explorer
Welp, late to this thread, so I haven't read all the comments, but here are my thoughts:
One of the things I like about certain D&D settings is that there is a well-established afterlife, and not a gloomy one—well, depending on the god you subscribe to. This is a big reason I’ve stayed away from settings like Dark Sun. So for that reason, I’ve never really liked the Wall. I’ve always thought there should be a different fate. Perhaps the Faithless share the fate of the False, which, at least according to the 3.0 FR Campaign Guide, will vary based on the severity of their crimes. For some, this means working in the City of Judgement and serving Kelemvor in varying compacities (though some receive a harsher punishment). Perhaps the Faithless would get a similar penance, and maybe said penance would vary based on how “faithless” they are. Like, the difference between those who just didn’t pay particular attention to the deity, versus those who consciously flipped all of them the bird. But maybe this isn’t much better than the Wall. Hmm.
In a world like Forgotten Realms, being an atheist in the way we think of the term would be exceedingly rare and foolish. The gods are very real and part of the setting. Most Faerunians are polytheistic, praying to various deities throughout their lives. A farmer may pray to Chauntea for his crops to grow, and Talos to keep storms away, for example (you of course have paladins and clergy, and others with a defined patron). Most Faerunians end up leaning towards one deity—however slightly—above the others, and this is likely the deity that will collect their soul. Most demihuman species (elves, gnomes, dwarves, etc) worship those in their respective pantheons. Those who are not under Kelemvor/Myrkul’s sphere of influence (Zakhara, for example), answer to their own deities, so I don’t think the Wall applies.
So, on the one hand, I’m happy they’re getting rid of the Wall, though it would be nice if they provided an alternative, and they kept the larvae part, which isn’t really any better, imho. This also just seems like a further move to push the gods out of the picture. We already have non-theistic paladins and clerics (which may work for a setting like Dark Sun, but not for FR). I really don’t get the aversion people have to gods being part of a fantasy setting, when they’re fine with all the other stuff: magic, dragons, elves, dwarves, undead, sentient artifacts, etc.
5e is always vague on details, and it often contradicts itself. It’s like they change things with every product released. Again, I would rather have an actual explanation for why the Wall no longer exists, rather than them just omitting it. And since they’re keeping the larvae part, an unclaimed soul is basically the same thing as a faithless at this point. I mean, if you’ve never worshiped, there isn’t really a god who can claim you. Removing a single sentence isn’t going to fix the issue, imho.
I am really only familiar with Plancescape through On Hallowed Ground, but in that book, it distinguishes the difference between a faithless and someone who doesn’t even believe in an afterlife. A faithless still gets an afterlife, it just takes him longer to achieve a higher form. Someone who doesn’t even believe in a soul or that there is something gets oblivion. I don't think they should do this for FR, but I bring it up because I saw some mention of Planescape.
One of the things I like about certain D&D settings is that there is a well-established afterlife, and not a gloomy one—well, depending on the god you subscribe to. This is a big reason I’ve stayed away from settings like Dark Sun. So for that reason, I’ve never really liked the Wall. I’ve always thought there should be a different fate. Perhaps the Faithless share the fate of the False, which, at least according to the 3.0 FR Campaign Guide, will vary based on the severity of their crimes. For some, this means working in the City of Judgement and serving Kelemvor in varying compacities (though some receive a harsher punishment). Perhaps the Faithless would get a similar penance, and maybe said penance would vary based on how “faithless” they are. Like, the difference between those who just didn’t pay particular attention to the deity, versus those who consciously flipped all of them the bird. But maybe this isn’t much better than the Wall. Hmm.
In a world like Forgotten Realms, being an atheist in the way we think of the term would be exceedingly rare and foolish. The gods are very real and part of the setting. Most Faerunians are polytheistic, praying to various deities throughout their lives. A farmer may pray to Chauntea for his crops to grow, and Talos to keep storms away, for example (you of course have paladins and clergy, and others with a defined patron). Most Faerunians end up leaning towards one deity—however slightly—above the others, and this is likely the deity that will collect their soul. Most demihuman species (elves, gnomes, dwarves, etc) worship those in their respective pantheons. Those who are not under Kelemvor/Myrkul’s sphere of influence (Zakhara, for example), answer to their own deities, so I don’t think the Wall applies.
So, on the one hand, I’m happy they’re getting rid of the Wall, though it would be nice if they provided an alternative, and they kept the larvae part, which isn’t really any better, imho. This also just seems like a further move to push the gods out of the picture. We already have non-theistic paladins and clerics (which may work for a setting like Dark Sun, but not for FR). I really don’t get the aversion people have to gods being part of a fantasy setting, when they’re fine with all the other stuff: magic, dragons, elves, dwarves, undead, sentient artifacts, etc.
5e is always vague on details, and it often contradicts itself. It’s like they change things with every product released. Again, I would rather have an actual explanation for why the Wall no longer exists, rather than them just omitting it. And since they’re keeping the larvae part, an unclaimed soul is basically the same thing as a faithless at this point. I mean, if you’ve never worshiped, there isn’t really a god who can claim you. Removing a single sentence isn’t going to fix the issue, imho.
I am really only familiar with Plancescape through On Hallowed Ground, but in that book, it distinguishes the difference between a faithless and someone who doesn’t even believe in an afterlife. A faithless still gets an afterlife, it just takes him longer to achieve a higher form. Someone who doesn’t even believe in a soul or that there is something gets oblivion. I don't think they should do this for FR, but I bring it up because I saw some mention of Planescape.
Alzrius
The EN World kitten
Actually, we found out later that they get worse than oblivion.
I'm interested in fleshing out your perspective since it would make a great devil. I can see a devil saying these things to mortals to convince them that the gods of good are really just another shade of evil.
And I would have to double check, but I'm pretty sure the Wall has considerable impact on the mortal realm, or Kelemvor wouldn't have been scolded for swaying the actions of so many mortals. Plus, any mortal can go visit the wall with the appropriate magic.
Chaosmancer
Legend
Sharing a name does tend to make things the same, but we can agree to disagree.
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Because you are confusing war and opposition.
Bane orders his followers to tyranize a town, to subjugate the villagers to his worship. Tyr sends a few of his followers to defeat them, freeing the town who gratefully erect a shrine in Tyr's honor. In fact, one boy is so moved by his saviors that in ten years he becomes a paladin and goes out spreading the Faith of Tyr and converting more people.
The goal, over time, is to deny Bane worshippers and have Tyr gain more, thus strangling Bane's power and eventually defeating him.
They do not need to assault Bane directly in his home realm, because they can defeat him indirectly by weakening his presence on Faerun. In fact, this is the accepted competition between the gods.
But the Wall doesn't work this way. You can't "strangle" the Wall's existence, it has already existed past it's creator, and all it would take for the gods to stop more souls from going into it would be to... just agree to stop. To petition for its end, to oppose its use... and there is no Deity listed in all of the lore who opposed the Wall in general. Am I taking a lack of evidence to mean something? Yes. If they opposed the wall, I would expect to see evidence. If they did not oppose the wall, I would expect to see nothing. I see nothing, therefore them not opposing it makes more sense. Silence speaks volumes after all,.
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Sure, but that is a hard sell. The things that Devil's really need to do is convince someone that they are not evil. "The Lesser of Two Evils" is a thing, so you not only need to bring down the gods of good, but raise the Devil's up as helping mortals.
For my setting I went the route of "unified force". The Gods are allowing mortals to decide the shape of the future going forward, to pick which path will work. Devil's say that that disunity is going to get us all killed by demons and abominations, instead, they have a plan and they are actively recruiting for that plan. Everyone unified under a single ruler, and based on a meritocracy. You are a better ruler than your boss? Prove it, get promoted and take over. Every seat is up for grabs because we want the best people in charge to make this universe work.
I'm kind of proud of them, since they seem like a very legitimate option to take.
As I understand it, what Kelemvor really did that swayed the mortals was that he made his realm a paradise, and he let anyone he felt was good, brave, ect, stay there if there god did not want to claim them.
Supposedly this made mortals more reckless, because dying in battle just meant you got an awesome afterlife for eternity, and that was bad. But... personally I don't think the logic of those events really plays out that way.
Voadam
Legend
The logic would be therefore those mortals who have a patron god (most of them) would be more reckless, because dying means they go to their god's paradise of awesome afterlife for eternity.
SehanineMoonbow
Explorer
I have read through more of this thread now (though not all of it), and rather than multi-quoting, I’m just going to share more thoughts I have after reading some of the comments.
I’ve always been a fan of the gods. They enrich the setting for me, and again, the lack of deities is why I haven’t really explored settings like Dark Sun. But, as I think I mentioned above, and as I can see by comments here (and elsewhere over the years) the Wall is often presented as the main reason people hate the gods. I agree that the Wall is…not great. I do think ending up on the Wall is a rare occurrence, as you would have to really flip all of the deities the bird. Sure, it’s a well-built wall now, but it’s been built up over a long period of time.
I don’t think most Faerunians feel forced to worship a deity (with exceptions like Lolth). You have a plethora to choose from, and praying to them would probably be second nature to most. This doesn’t mean everyone is “religious” in the way we would think of the term, but acknowledgement, a whispered prayer, and paying respects to a deity or two is likely commonplace. This is probably a bad and silly analogy, but it’s like food. We all need to eat to survive, but we can choose the food we eat.
That said, while I’ve always been a deity fan (in fantasy in general, not just D&D) I can understand the argument that the Wall makes all deities look like tyrants. Kelemvor tried to get rid of it, but was stopped, and since then, he seems to have become more enforcing of it. It existed before the gods required worship for power (as that wasn’t mandated until after the Time of Troubles), IIRC, and Myrkul may have made it to further instill fear. It’s been a long time since I’ve read the Avatar series, but it’s existence after the Time of Troubles makes more sense than it does before. But, with the gods being quieter in 5e (well, except perhaps Auril), and taking a step back, maybe they’re doing away with the Wall. But they still require worship for power, as far as I know, so the stepping back doesn’t really make sense to me, either, Wall or no Wall. Again, it's been a long time since I've read the Avatar series, but this is being discussed in several platforms, and some have mentioned that in place of the Wall of the Faithless, Kelemvor had created a Wall of Mirrors or something, and you look in the mirrors, and it shows the soul their deeds (so, if you're a bad dude, you're gonna have to face that). But this apparently didn't last, and the WotF has been the MO.
Someone (I think it was Chaosmancer) earlier asked about non-human souls. While I don’t actually have a direct canonical sources or evidence for this, the Wall seems to be made mostly of human souls. Elves, for example, I think go to directly to Arvandor—it seems that way in novels, and source books hinted at it, too. The call to Arvandor is very strong, so it seems to me most elven spirits bypass the Fugue Plane, unless they specifically worshiped outside the Seldarine. I’m not sure about the other races/species, but Kelemvor is part of the Faerunian pantheon, which is largely human, though of course other races/species can and do worship them. The lore is blurry here, as it has sometimes been indicated that all souls go to the Fugue Plane, where they await their deity (or agent of the deity), where others—mostly novels—sometimes hint that some races/species bypass the Fugue Plane. But then again, there was a scene in War of the Spider Queen, where drow souls were waiting on the Fugue Plane, and the MC in the short story “Necessary Sacrifices” ended up on the Fugue Plane, so…shrugs A bit convoluted.
In any case, 5e is vague about so many things—sometimes I think they’re taking the interpretation and “up to you”, too far. Detail has never stopped gamers from using their imagination. As I mentioned in my previous comment, having an established afterlife is an important aspect of fantasy for me. I’m not particularly religious irl, but I love the esoterica stuff in fantasy. I think it adds dimension—after all, we have everything else: magic, elves, dragons, liches, etc. I don’t have much issue with them getting rid of the Wall, but I do take issue with the continued vagueness. Simply erasing a sentence in something that is only a paragraph anyway doesn’t really rectify much, especially if they’re keeping the part about unclaimed souls being larvae. That’s not any better. If they do away with the Wall, I want an explanation of how/why, and what happens to those souls instead. Do they go to the plane that is best suited to them? Does Kelemvor judge them based solely on their deeds, and then send them to the appropriate place? The dead are important to the gods, too, right? So if a soul was given to a deity, even if they didn't worship that deity, would still end up being beneficial, I would think. Deities want to have petitioners fill their realms and spend eternity there, so I don't think a deity would turn away a soul, unless it was a benevolent deity turning away an evil soul, but if they were sent to the appropriate plane, that is unlikely to happen.
There is a a Drizzt book that comes out next year, and the last part of the summary says this:
I’ve always been a fan of the gods. They enrich the setting for me, and again, the lack of deities is why I haven’t really explored settings like Dark Sun. But, as I think I mentioned above, and as I can see by comments here (and elsewhere over the years) the Wall is often presented as the main reason people hate the gods. I agree that the Wall is…not great. I do think ending up on the Wall is a rare occurrence, as you would have to really flip all of the deities the bird. Sure, it’s a well-built wall now, but it’s been built up over a long period of time.
I don’t think most Faerunians feel forced to worship a deity (with exceptions like Lolth). You have a plethora to choose from, and praying to them would probably be second nature to most. This doesn’t mean everyone is “religious” in the way we would think of the term, but acknowledgement, a whispered prayer, and paying respects to a deity or two is likely commonplace. This is probably a bad and silly analogy, but it’s like food. We all need to eat to survive, but we can choose the food we eat.
That said, while I’ve always been a deity fan (in fantasy in general, not just D&D) I can understand the argument that the Wall makes all deities look like tyrants. Kelemvor tried to get rid of it, but was stopped, and since then, he seems to have become more enforcing of it. It existed before the gods required worship for power (as that wasn’t mandated until after the Time of Troubles), IIRC, and Myrkul may have made it to further instill fear. It’s been a long time since I’ve read the Avatar series, but it’s existence after the Time of Troubles makes more sense than it does before. But, with the gods being quieter in 5e (well, except perhaps Auril), and taking a step back, maybe they’re doing away with the Wall. But they still require worship for power, as far as I know, so the stepping back doesn’t really make sense to me, either, Wall or no Wall. Again, it's been a long time since I've read the Avatar series, but this is being discussed in several platforms, and some have mentioned that in place of the Wall of the Faithless, Kelemvor had created a Wall of Mirrors or something, and you look in the mirrors, and it shows the soul their deeds (so, if you're a bad dude, you're gonna have to face that). But this apparently didn't last, and the WotF has been the MO.
Someone (I think it was Chaosmancer) earlier asked about non-human souls. While I don’t actually have a direct canonical sources or evidence for this, the Wall seems to be made mostly of human souls. Elves, for example, I think go to directly to Arvandor—it seems that way in novels, and source books hinted at it, too. The call to Arvandor is very strong, so it seems to me most elven spirits bypass the Fugue Plane, unless they specifically worshiped outside the Seldarine. I’m not sure about the other races/species, but Kelemvor is part of the Faerunian pantheon, which is largely human, though of course other races/species can and do worship them. The lore is blurry here, as it has sometimes been indicated that all souls go to the Fugue Plane, where they await their deity (or agent of the deity), where others—mostly novels—sometimes hint that some races/species bypass the Fugue Plane. But then again, there was a scene in War of the Spider Queen, where drow souls were waiting on the Fugue Plane, and the MC in the short story “Necessary Sacrifices” ended up on the Fugue Plane, so…shrugs A bit convoluted.
In any case, 5e is vague about so many things—sometimes I think they’re taking the interpretation and “up to you”, too far. Detail has never stopped gamers from using their imagination. As I mentioned in my previous comment, having an established afterlife is an important aspect of fantasy for me. I’m not particularly religious irl, but I love the esoterica stuff in fantasy. I think it adds dimension—after all, we have everything else: magic, elves, dragons, liches, etc. I don’t have much issue with them getting rid of the Wall, but I do take issue with the continued vagueness. Simply erasing a sentence in something that is only a paragraph anyway doesn’t really rectify much, especially if they’re keeping the part about unclaimed souls being larvae. That’s not any better. If they do away with the Wall, I want an explanation of how/why, and what happens to those souls instead. Do they go to the plane that is best suited to them? Does Kelemvor judge them based solely on their deeds, and then send them to the appropriate place? The dead are important to the gods, too, right? So if a soul was given to a deity, even if they didn't worship that deity, would still end up being beneficial, I would think. Deities want to have petitioners fill their realms and spend eternity there, so I don't think a deity would turn away a soul, unless it was a benevolent deity turning away an evil soul, but if they were sent to the appropriate plane, that is unlikely to happen.
There is a a Drizzt book that comes out next year, and the last part of the summary says this:
“Drizzt seeks answers that could offer salvation to not just his soul, but all souls. And no matter the outcome of either journey, the Realms will never be the same again” RAS tends to do his own thing, but after this revelation, I can’t help but wonder if there is some tie-in.
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