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

[Libertad]

In the vein that they view the Cataclysm that the gods sent to the mortal world for Istar's corruption as justified to some extent. Or believe that consigning antitheists and atheists to cosmic building blocks is a necessary evil for the greater good.

Dragonlance has been on my mind lately for various reasons, and between it and Forgotten Realms I notice that the tabletop social circles I notice certain acts of divine violence as a big dealbreaker for people who'd otherwise be interested in the settings. Or they like the settings but would either retcon or alter said aspects, or even cast the gods in a more antagonistic role.

But the number of Wall/Cataclysm defenders I know of can be counted on one hand. And I've been on quite the number of forums.

Has anyone here encountered such defenders? What was their reasoning?

And if any posters happen to be such defenders, I wouldn't mind hearing your rationales.

 

[QuentinGeorge]

I don't think the two are the same thing. The Wall of the Faithless is punishment for those who refuse to take a divine patron. The Cataclysm is a punishment from the gods to the overmighty faithful.

(The Kingpriest Trilogy adds further nuance to the Cataclysm as well as raising Fistandantilus' role in propelling the events)

 

[ccs]

Well my friend Joe is very much stuck on FR cannon. I don't know that you'd exactly call him a defender of the Wall of the Faithless concept, but he absolutely assumes it to be the default in anything that he thinks resembles an FR based game.....

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

Sometimes I imagine the fate of the souls in the faithless wall isn't totally the end, but something linked with the demiplane of the dread will happen and most of them will be abducted into Ravenloft, but the souls who suffered enough punishment and obeyed the Natural Law.

Usually fantasy fiction talks about the trove of the faith without mercy. If we abuse this trope it may become repellent and forgetting the original warning against the fanaticism.

I don't know the story about the kingpriest and with enough details to judge, and in my own game I don't respect the canon.

Before the cataclysm there were various warnings, but I suspects the evil powers tricked something to cause the cataclysm, and not only the elfmaids who lied to lord Soth.

 

[Shiroiken]

Something to bear in mind is the notion that the thought process of the gods is different than we can understand as a mortal. They see the long view of everything, while we can only see the short term. Divine violence, as you put it, may offend our modern sensibilities, but it can make sense for a fantasy setting. If a player or DM is uncomfortable with it, they should simply avoid it or change it (if a DM).

While I don't know much about the details of the Cataclysm, from the Time of the Twins we learned that the priesthood had become horribly corrupt. The gods were overall displeased with their arrogance, putting themselves on the same status as the gods themselves, and so sent warnings that were ignored. The final straw was when the pope equivalent (totally forget his name/title) demanded the gods of good give him the power to utterly destroy Evil. Not only did the mortal dare demand of a god, but the world of Krynn is based on a delicate balance between Good, Neutral, and Evil. These two major transgressions after many years/decades (centuries?) of corruption were too much for the gods to accept, even the gods of good.

The Wall of the Faithless makes sense, or at least it did back in AD&D (I don't know if they've made any changes to it). The souls of the dead arrive at the Fugue Plane where they await their god to arrive and take them to their eternal plane of existence. If you don't have a god, obviously you can't be picked up, so you belong to Bhall, the lord of the dead. Bhall being evil AF, created the wall of the faithless as a punishment for them. The ones who were unfaithful were instead tortured by Bhall and his fiends. This was the natural result of the Fugue Plane and the need for the gods to collect their faithful, with an evil god running the underworld. When Kellemvor (sp?) became the new lord of the dead, he stopped the building of the Wall, but could do little for the souls already made part of it.

 

[Bitbrain]

WALL OF THE FAITHLESS
At present, everyone else in my group is an evangelical christian. They see absolutely nothing wrong with the Wall of the Faithless.

What they do have a problem with is D&D’s approach to religion in general, ESPECIALLY with regards to the very concept of the Blood War. In the end, we agreed to just make it a divine punishment inflicted upon both demons and devils.

As for myself, yeah, I don’t run games in the Forgotten Realms, so I don’t have to bother with the Wall of the Faithless.

The thing sounds an awful lot like being put in a straitjacket for all eternity... shudders.


THE CATACLYSM
I’ve only read the first two original Dragonlance novels, plus a few of the other expanded universe stuff. None of them really went into the cataclysm in any detail, so I was rather disappointed when I learned there was a canonical reason in-universe for the cataclysm.

It felt unnecessary.

I much prefer the implication from that really beautiful scene in Dragons of Autumn Twilight where Goldmoon was comparing the cataclysm to a threatening situation that makes you concerned only for your own survival. It’s only after the situation has passed and you’ve calmed down again do you try to go back and retrieve what you lost.

Sometimes, freak accidents occur. Sometimes we lose something in the resulting chaos. But eventually we might find it again after a time.

 

[Flamestrike]

I'm sorry, how is the Wall of the Faithless 'evil'?

An atheist chooses the fate of non-existence after death - in that they reject both not only Deities, but also afterlives such as Heaven and Hell (and indeed all the outer planes) and also their place on one after death.

Ao (who has no alignment and exists outside of alignment) has decreed that the souls of Faithless who reject the existence of the Gods and reject desiring an afterlife are to contribute to the wall, where they lose all individuality until they eventually disintegrate and cease existing completely.

And ceasing to exist completely after you die is precisely the sort of thing atheists expect will happen when they die isnt it?

Dont forget, even then Kelemvor can still judge a person 'True' even if that person is an Atheist. A Lawful Good Paladin who has lived a life of honor, duty and self sacrifice could find themselves offered a place in Celestia with Torm for being true to that Gods teachings even though the Paladin in question is an atheist. A horrific atheist serial killer could also be judged 'True' and offered a place in Bhaals divine realm. A wealthy merchant atheist might be offered a place in Waukeens realm. And so forth.

 

[Flamestrike]

My main concern is the fate of the False. They get tortured for all eternity.

Which means a servant of Cyric, who engages in acts of evil, but then legitimately recants his evil God, embraces a life of altruism and kindness, and seeks to atone for his sins but yet dies before committing to another deity...

...gets tortured for all of eternity for his atonement.

I suppose he wasnt going anywhere nice anyway for his afterlife (The Supreme Throne is no Disneyland) but still.

Ditto a LG Paladin of Torm who renounces warfare and violence and forsakes Torm for a less militant way of life. Should he die before aligning with a different deity, he would likely be judged 'False' and tortured for all of eternity on the Fuge plane.

 

[QuentinGeorge]

Something to bear in mind is the notion that the thought process of the gods is different than we can understand as a mortal. They see the long view of everything, while we can only see the short term. Divine violence, as you put it, may offend our modern sensibilities, but it can make sense for a fantasy setting. If a player or DM is uncomfortable with it, they should simply avoid it or change it (if a DM).

While I don't know much about the details of the Cataclysm, from the Time of the Twins we learned that the priesthood had become horribly corrupt. The gods were overall displeased with their arrogance, putting themselves on the same status as the gods themselves, and so sent warnings that were ignored. The final straw was when the pope equivalent (totally forget his name/title) demanded the gods of good give him the power to utterly destroy Evil. Not only did the mortal dare demand of a god, but the world of Krynn is based on a delicate balance between Good, Neutral, and Evil. These two major transgressions after many years/decades (centuries?) of corruption were too much for the gods to accept, even the gods of good.

The Wall of the Faithless makes sense, or at least it did back in AD&D (I don't know if they've made any changes to it). The souls of the dead arrive at the Fugue Plane where they await their god to arrive and take them to their eternal plane of existence. If you don't have a god, obviously you can't be picked up, so you belong to Bhall, the lord of the dead. Bhall being evil AF, created the wall of the faithless as a punishment for them. The ones who were unfaithful were instead tortured by Bhall and his fiends. This was the natural result of the Fugue Plane and the need for the gods to collect their faithful, with an evil god running the underworld. When Kellemvor (sp?) became the new lord of the dead, he stopped the building of the Wall, but could do little for the souls already made part of it.

That's not quite correct about the Cataclysm. There was corruption in Istar, but the Kingpriest (Beldinas Pilofiro) was corrupt, he was fanatical. Kurnos was definitely corrupt, but he had nothing to do with the Cataclysm, apart from being the catalyst for Beldinas to take the throne. I don't know that there was really centuries of corruption, it was more than abrogation of free will under Beldinas and the meddling of Fistandantilus.

 

[FrozenNorth]

That's not quite correct about the Cataclysm. There was corruption in Istar, but the Kingpriest (Beldinas Pilofiro) was corrupt, he was fanatical. Kurnos was definitely corrupt, but he had nothing to do with the Cataclysm, apart from being the catalyst for Beldinas to take the throne. I don't know that there was really centuries of corruption, it was more than abrogation of free will under Beldinas and the meddling of Fistandantilus.

My big issue with the Cataclysm was Fizban saying that sure the Kingpriest was torturing, kidnapping and killing people, but he was still a Good man. I mean, that’s why we need a balance between Good and Evil, right? So the Good people won’t get out of hand and start persecuting Good (or Neutral) people who are different from them? Also, the gods had no choice but to drop a mountain on the just and unjust alike. It’s not like gods in D&D have other ways to communicate with their faithful and the High Priest of their religion.