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

[MonsterEnvy]

Dendar the Night Serpent is proof that the Fugue Plane predates the Gods. Dendar is a primordial that was born when the first being in existence had a nightmare. She is a native of the Fugue Plane.

 

[Phantarch]

You see, the real problem is that in 5th edition, without intervention of a deity, you have to have Advantage on your Alignment Check to go to an appropriate afterlife. However, a single act that is counter to your alignment gives you disadvantage on this check. As we all know, a single instance of disadvantage cancels out any and all sources of advantage, regardless of the number. Therefore, it's virtually impossible for a soul to move on without the intervention of a deity.

 

[Sword of Spirit]

You see, the real problem is that in 5th edition, without intervention of a deity, you have to have Advantage on your Alignment Check to go to an appropriate afterlife. However, a single act that is counter to your alignment gives you disadvantage on this check. As we all know, a single instance of disadvantage cancels out any and all sources of advantage, regardless of the number. Therefore, it's virtually impossible for a soul to move on without the intervention of a deity.

That's where the Straight Arrow, and Great Moral Master feats come in. That +10 on Alignment Checks is the key to reliably getting into your afterlife of choice.

 

[Dire Bare]

Why, oh why can't the Realms be politically correct for atheists?

Offensive. And off the mark.

 

[MG.0]

I'd just like to throw in that I find the entire concept of canon to be idiotic when applied to D&D.

D&D is fundamentally a game of imagination. Campaign worlds exist solely (at least originally) to reduce the workload on DM's. They are meant ot have huge blank spots and gaps for you to fill in however you please (at least they used to). The idea of a prescriptive, comprehensive, fully detailed world is anathema to a good D&D campaign setting because you can't really make it your own without someone complaining. This is one of the reasons I actually like Greyhawk better than FR. I also never cared for the Realms kitchen-sink approach to cultures. Going above and beyond the actual RPG accessories and including novels as D&D canon that must be obeyed is ludicrous. Vast swaths of canon serves a purpose for world building if your goal is to sell more stuff, but it really has little place in D&D campaigns. There are as many parallel universe versions of the Realms as there are DM's out there running it. The novels aren't even one of those.

Do whatever you like. For instance, have a campaign centered around a group of characters who believe the gods are frauds (just super-powered mortals) that go on an epic quest to destroy the entire Fugue plane. For fun, have them insert the old gods into the damn wall and see how they like it.

 

[Dire Bare]

People keep throwing the phrase "political correctness for atheists", but that's not what this is about.

This isn't me being worried that my fictional character is worshiping a deity - generally I'm fine with that, even with the gods that FR is stuck with.

This is about a torture device that was created by a mortal ascended to godhood for the explicit purpose of terrifying mortals into giving worship being a part of a system that "Good" gods are gaining power from.

There was some point where Kelemvor did away with the wall and started judging and treating people who ended up with him (ie - false and faithless) according to their goodness in life. Enough of Faerun knew about this change to the afterlife that good people stopped going off with good gods (so they could relax in Kelemvor's paradise) and evil people followed evil gods scrupulously (so that they wouldn't be judged by Kelemvor). The change was enough that it affected the balance between good and evil deities.

So apparently the process of the afterlife is plastered on billboards in Waterdeep or something.

Also note that ceasing to use the wall didn't cause any problems in itself. The problems were caused by Faerunians gaming Kelemvor's flawed rules for the afterlife. *

So, yeah, the afterlife is apparently transparent enough that PCs are likely to know how it works, including the existence and use of the wall. That should heavily affect the morals of every good, neutral or chaotic character that follows a god, and weigh heavily on anyone who understands that following a god "or else" isn't really being faithful so much as fearful.

(*) My understanding of the novels where this occurs also include Kelemvor ceasing use of the wall, determined that noone in his realm will be either punished OR rewarded... but apparently in 5e, he's started the wall up again?

Yeah, those "political correctness for atheists" comments are both ignorant and highly offensive. Plus miss the mark of the complaint.

However, having the afterlife in a fictional/mythic setting being "transparent" is the way its supposed to work. You shouldn't be living a good life according to the tenets of your religion, only to get to the Pearly Gates and be surprised when it doesn't work that way! At least, from the perspective of being "inside" that religion. And a fictional fantasy takes religion and makes it manifest, making not just the way a certain group of people believe the cosmos works, but the way the cosmos actually works!

Of course, there is fiction that has this as part of its premise, that how the cosmos really works is very different from the beliefs of mortals on the ground, but that is not the default, mythically or fictionally.

 

[Dire Bare]

Like some others here, I find the concept of the "Wall of the Faithless" very disturbing. If I were in charge of rebooting the Realms (once again), I'd tweak it or junk it, as I don't feel it really works well in a heroic fantasy setting like the Forgotten Realms. If I were using the Realms in my games (instead of just choosing cool bits to steal), I would again tweak it or junk it.

However, compared to some real-world religions and mythologies, casting those who reject god(s) into eternal suffering has precedent. It's very Judeo-Christian, which is the cultural background that D&D has sprung from. But then again, in the real-world, that's what turned me off of religion and put me on the path to agnosticism. All those folks preaching to me that if I didn't accept their particular interpretation of faith, that I was damned for all eternity, no matter how good of a person I am.

There are a lot of ways to play D&D, but to me, the core of the experience is escapism and being heroes and making a difference . . . in D&D, good and evil are real, concrete concepts, and the heroes defend the order against the chaos of evil. For the deities of good to passively accept something vile and evil like the Wall of the Faithless, well, that's not very high fantasy to me.

Of course, there are different literary traditions you can use to tweak your D&D game if you want something darker, and/or more ambigous. Several official settings certainly do so. The Wall of the Faithless might just work really well in a dark fantasy D&D game. But for the core experience? No, it doesn't belong. Not IMHO, of course.

 

[Dire Bare]

I'd just like to throw in that I find the entire concept of canon to be idiotic when applied to D&D.

The canon of a setting may not be very important to you, that's fine of course. And D&D is certainly a tinker's game, where you are encouraged to take what's written and then go do your own thing.

But don't dismiss the importance of canon to others. There are entire fan communities build around the canon of the Forgotten Realms, Greyhawk, (every single D&D campaign ever published), Star Trek, Star Wars, Doctor Who, etc, etc. I certainly think that folks can overdo it and get too uptight about canon, especially considering that canon is a loose and tricky concept, and that every "universe" has its inconsistencies and contradictions . . . But it's not "idiotic" to enjoy canon and to try and incorporate into your home D&D game. It creates a shared experience beyond your table that many folks really enjoy.

 

[sunshadow21]

Like some others here, I find the concept of the "Wall of the Faithless" very disturbing. If I were in charge of rebooting the Realms (once again), I'd tweak it or junk it, as I don't feel it really works well in a heroic fantasy setting like the Forgotten Realms. If I were using the Realms in my games (instead of just choosing cool bits to steal), I would again tweak it or junk it.

However, compared to some real-world religions and mythologies, casting those who reject god(s) into eternal suffering has precedent. It's very Judeo-Christian, which is the cultural background that D&D has sprung from. But then again, in the real-world, that's what turned me off of religion and put me on the path to agnosticism. All those folks preaching to me that if I didn't accept their particular interpretation of faith, that I was damned for all eternity, no matter how good of a person I am.

There are a lot of ways to play D&D, but to me, the core of the experience is escapism and being heroes and making a difference . . . in D&D, good and evil are real, concrete concepts, and the heroes defend the order against the chaos of evil. For the deities of good to passively accept something vile and evil like the Wall of the Faithless, well, that's not very high fantasy to me.

Of course, there are different literary traditions you can use to tweak your D&D game if you want something darker, and/or more ambigous. Several official settings certainly do so. The Wall of the Faithless might just work really well in a dark fantasy D&D game. But for the core experience? No, it doesn't belong. Not IMHO, of course.

While your post is legitimate, many people have posted ways that easily allow the inclusion of the Wall while still allowing for most of your concerns. The simplest, by far, is simply to not treat Kelemvor a particularly harsh judge, reserving the Wall for those that truly deserve it, because the souls put into the wall are no longer available to power the deities. The good gods still may not like it, but by making it that Kelemvor has as many practical limitations on using it as the other gods have in not wanting it at all creates a well balanced system in which all gods benefit, and very few mortals are going to be particularly hurt by it. Add in incentives for Kelemvor to be relatively quick in his judgments, and most of the concerns about the Fugue Plane go away as well.

The thing I find interesting about all the arguments here is that no one has mentioned how the evil gods react to the Wall, and I would think they would have just as much reason to dislike it as the good gods. Every soul that goes into that wall is one that the evil gods lose access to; they would actually be even more greedy than the good gods on that aspect. Also, while the evil ones may not mind the torment aspect in and of itself, they would most certainly object to someone else doing the tormenting; again, in many ways, they would have even more impetus to object to that aspect, because it would weaken their own reputation as tormenters. When all is said and done, they have just as much reason to object, and because many of the aspects of the Wall seem to step on their toes more directly, there's going to be more oomph behind those reasons because of the personal nature of those reasons. If I were Kelemvor, I would be more worried about the evil gods than the good gods on this issue. The good gods can be appeased simply by ensuring a fair and quick judgment process; the evil gods, because of the additional personal nature of their concerns, would actually be much harder to appease.

In the end for me, it would seem to me that all the non-neutral gods would have reason to accept the existence of the wall while working very actively to influence how and when it gets fed. While the use of favors and the proverbial carrot will generally be the lead-off pitch, the existence of that particular stick is something that even good gods can and would use to their advantage. The only time I would really see either the Wall or the Fugue Plane being enough of a problem for the good gods to force them to rebel against them is overuse of the Wall and particularly, and deliberately, long waiting times before souls worthy of other domains before Kelemvor finally decides to pass judgment. A lot of people seem to assume the worst and harshest possible judgments when it comes to how Kelemvor handles the judgments, and that really isn't necessary. I could easily see a system where the other gods may not have final say, but would absolutely insist on, and receive, the right to provide counsel and input before final judgment is passed, as well as ways to expedite or slow down the process when they feel the need to do so. This interpretation handles all of the objections raised in this thread, and so far as I know, there's nothing anywhere in the official canon that goest into particular detail of the processes used to pass judgment, so it doesn't go against canon, either.

 

[Phantarch]

Another point of contemplation is the Pact Primeval as presented in Fiendish Codex II: Tyrants of the Nine Hells. Here's an excerpt that explains it: https://lords-of-darkness.obsidianportal.com/wiki_pages/the-pact-primeval

Now, it can certainly be debated as to its level of canon, but it sets the precedent that gods across the multiverse agreed to the concept of cruel, inhumane punishment for transgressors. I don't think a moral dilemma with the "Goodness" of the Good deities in D&D ends with the Forgotten Realms.