D&D 5E [Forgotten Realms] The Wall of the Faithless

[Irennan]

Sounds like an awesome chronicle. In fact, it was the main story behind Neverwinter Nights 2 Mask of the Betrayer campaign. As for Mystara and Ilmater... they don't really have a choice but to be on board with it. Its what Ao decreed, and Ao isn't Good. Ao is True Neutral and a supporter of tyranny as well as freedom. So, you have the freedom to choose your tyrant. And, yes, in NW2 MotB we had an actual angel who felt the same way to the point she got kicked out of Mount Celestia.


Yeah, it can be annoying, but the gods hold as much sway over your story and plot that it only comes up if you make it. Take a look at the Brimstone Angels series. The dragonborn of Faerun don't worship gods, they think they're a bunch of tyrants, even the supposedly good ones. An entire society of aethists who are okay with ceasing to exist after they die.

Too bad that in MotB [Sblock]you don't get to shatter the Wall into pieces.[/Sblock] I enjoyed the game, but that was really disappointing.

 

[JohnLynch]

Imagine a campaign where aberrations are becoming more plentiful and are a danger to all. When the players travel the planes they see aberrations are there as well. Finally they track it back to Kelemvor's domain and discover Dragonborn have been rescuing the souls of their dead from the Wall of the Faithless, creating holes in the wall that are letting the aberrations slip through. The PC's choice: Put the Dragonborn back in the Wall or risk all of creation becoming overrun with aberrations. What do they do?

 

[Irennan]

Imagine a campaign where aberrations are becoming more plentiful and are a danger to all. When the players travel the planes they see aberrations are there as well. Finally they track it back to Kelemvor's domain and discover Dragonborn have been rescuing the souls of their dead from the Wall of the Faithless, creating holes in the wall that are letting the aberrations slip through. The PC's choice: Put the Dragonborn back in the Wall or risk all of creation becoming overrun with aberrations. What do they do?

Kill Cthulhu

 

[Hussar]

I think that one thing this thread has shown, is that the Wall of the Faithless does exactly what every element in an RPG setting should do - serve as a springboard for cool adventures and stories.

Whether it's I'maB's "tear down the wall" or [MENTION=6749563]JohnLynch[/MENTION]'s "Outsiders invasion", there's a ton of cool stories to be had from this idea. And the concept that since the wall was created by Ao, the Overgod who certainly isn't good - the question in my mind is, how do the individual faiths react to this? Since the good gods can't tear it down, wouldn't that just make them proselytise that much harder? "Have faith or face oblivion" is a pretty strong message. The good gods maybe see themselves as "saving" souls from a fate they can't directly do anything about.

 

[Mephista]

Too bad that in MotB [Sblock]you don't get to shatter the Wall into pieces.[/Sblock] I enjoyed the game, but that was really disappointing.

True, I was hoping for similar. But it did make a good story for someone who'd be interested in that kind of thing.

 

[JohnLynch]

Kill Cthulhu

If you bring in Golarion lore (and I'm sure other games share this lore), Cthulhu is asleep at the bottom of the ocean on Earth. So an epic trip to Earth (what year would you present it as? I'm inclined to say 5th edition Forgotten Realms is a contemporary of present day Golarion which puts Earth in the early 20th Century), get the players into a submarine or u-boat and go to the location of Crhulhu, defeat him and then use his life essence to shore up the Wall of the Faithless. This could remove the need or any new souls to go into the Wall for at least a couple of centuries. However Cthulhu's influence could also
corrupt Kelemvor which could result in subtle changes in the next year or two but then in 200 or 300 years Kelemvor could transform into Cthulhu and start the whole saga all over again.

 

[Irennan]

If you bring in Golarion lore (and I'm sure other games share this lore), Cthulhu is asleep at the bottom of the ocean on Earth. So an epic trip to Earth (what year would you present it as? I'm inclined to say 5th edition Forgotten Realms is a contemporary of present day Golarion which puts Earth in the early 20th Century), get the players into a submarine or u-boat and go to the location of Crhulhu, defeat him and then use his life essence to shore up the Wall of the Faithless. This could remove the need or any new souls to go into the Wall for at least a couple of centuries. However Cthulhu's influence could also
corrupt Kelemvor which could result in subtle changes in the next year or two but then in 200 or 300 years Kelemvor could transform into Cthulhu and start the whole saga all over again.

IMO, Cthulhu's essence would be very unreliable in stopping a Far Realm threat. It could become a resilient portal that allows swarms of aberrations to enter Toril. I was jokingly pointing out that many players would likely attempt to find a way to wreak havoc in the Far Realms as a solution to the problem. An alternative would be finding out what makes the connection between the Far Realms and Toril possible, and sever it. It would be a truly difficult task, though: the very nature of the Far Realm hardly makes it a possible subject of study and investigation. If we look at the outer planes being ideas made substance, maybe the connection lies in some aspects of human/elven/etc mind, making it really hard to break. Either way, in such a campaign, I would create an alternative to offer to the players, other than ''put the Dragonborn souls into the wall, or face thousands Cthulhus''.

 

[hawkeyefan]

I think that one thing this thread has shown, is that the Wall of the Faithless does exactly what every element in an RPG setting should do - serve as a springboard for cool adventures and stories.

Whether it's I'maB's "tear down the wall" or [MENTION=6749563]JohnLynch[/MENTION]'s "Outsiders invasion", there's a ton of cool stories to be had from this idea. And the concept that since the wall was created by Ao, the Overgod who certainly isn't good - the question in my mind is, how do the individual faiths react to this? Since the good gods can't tear it down, wouldn't that just make them proselytise that much harder? "Have faith or face oblivion" is a pretty strong message. The good gods maybe see themselves as "saving" souls from a fate they can't directly do anything about.

Just wanted to reply because I was going to point this out. Plenty of ideas have popped up in this thread that start with the Wall....that's a great thing. [MENTION=6749563]JohnLynch[/MENTION] had some really cool ideas that I'll likely run with to some extent.

I also want to apologize because I meant to give you XP, but fat thumbs turned it into a laugh.

 

[JohnLynch]

Cthulhu would definitely be unreliable long term, but it could definitely be viable short term assuming you've "killed it" first.. I'd probably introduce alternate ways to shore up the Wall as well. Although the better an option is, the more time it would take. Meanwhile aberrations are running amok and killing innocent people. A trip into the Far Realm would be so much madness that I don't know anyone could survive it. I also see the Far Realms as representing entropy and portals tend to open up in the absence of everything else (which is why they tend to be associated with space). The Wall on the edge of the domain of the dead seems like a suitable location to have a massive, permanent breach and using Far Realms as entropy I don't think a permanent solution outside of destroying the universe and rebuilding it could sever the link between the Far Realms and everything else (I also have the Far Realms be the survivors of the previous universe which was ultimately destroyed. The aberrations created a pocket that allowed them to survive the universes destruction, but by the time the universe did collapse all life as we would recognise it had ceased to exist and those who were around for the universe's end were completely insane, including the gods that had once populated the last universe. I don't know how much of that is canon and how much is me making it up).

 

[Fishing_Minigame]

I went to poke around the FR wiki just to see if there was any clarification on what made someone your patron deity:

When a faithful mortal dies, it can then petition their respective gods for entry to their plane of influence.

.....

A soul who does worship a deity but did not sufficiently uphold their patron's dogma is instead judged False.

That seems to require both active worship before death, and toeing whatever the party line is. Having to petition also suggests that deities don't stop by and scoop up everyone who is aligned with them in practice but not belief.

I'm in the camp that thinks that doesn't really jive with a whole bucket of good-aligned gods. So for my game I'm ruling that Kelemvor will chuck you on the wall for one of three reasons:

1) You've been actively hostile or otherwise alienated so many of the gods that none of them want to take you. Not even Asmodeus wants to take a chance with you.
2) You are True Neutral. Either by being so thoughtless and bland that you really don't lean towards anything, or by being the pants-on-head type who practices relentless Neutrality in all things. Either way, Big Kel doesn't know what to even do with you.
3) Oblivion sounds preferable to eternal life.

If you don't meet any of these criteria, someone shows up to make you an offer. The INT 3, level 20 barbarian who has no idea if there's a Dog? Tempus still shows up in his monster truck full of vikings and offers you a ride. Otherwise, Ilmater takes it upon himself to aid as many lost, suffering souls as he can.

As a plot suggestion, maybe the wall exists because the various afterlives are already full? Tyr would love to claim the casually just, but there's 400 million souls milling around and only 10,000 spots in his celestial palace.