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

[MonsterEnvy]

That suffering is the first circle of Hell in Dante. That's still a punishment for a soul, to be eternally deprived of a paradise that, by all accounts, they should be open to, if there was justice in the afterlife.

I am too tired to reply to the rest of your comment. But not all of these souls would be going to a paradise anyway. But here is Kelemvor's thoughts on this matter.

"No one should love death. No one should choose the land of the dead before living. The souls who are unclaimed will find no punishment in my realm, nor shall they find joy. Just people who share similar views to themselves."

Those who believe in Justice should be following Tyr or one of his subordinate gods in the first place.

 

[sunshadow21]

You live a life of virtue, you help others, you save innocents, you sacrifice your own happiness for the betterment of the world, you fight evil, you die, and now you need to beseech some random gomer to take a liking to you or spend eternity in some form of torment. That's the deal.

If you truly fought evil on any scale, you almost certainly did so with at least some aid from a good god, who can make a case with Kelemvor to allow you to go their realm. Even if you don't fully acknowledge their status as a god, it's still a good place to go to continue the fight evil, and as a valuable ally who lived their ideals, Kelemvor would have plenty of evidence to support sending you there unless you actively fought it. The thing you seem to be overlooking is that it takes a lot of apathy and/or active resistance to end up in the Wall, and in both cases, from the perspective of the sould that ends up there, the Wall probably isn't any worse than any other fate. If you spent your life actively denying the function, and possibly even the power, of the gods on the mortal plane where there is still some room for doubt, are you really going to want to go somewhere where you see that power flaunted directly on a daily basis for eternity and any questioning of that power is going to be heavily frowned upon? Going to a plane of alignment wouldn't be that much better; you're still going to be surrounded by indviduals that have that same level of power you resisted before and more; worse, being physical embodiments of those ideals, they are going to be even less inclined to tolerate any kind of apathy or questioning of authority. At that point, the Wall at least offers eventual oblivion, which none of the other options do.

If you are able to resist the call of the gods while living and the temptations of the demons while waiting for judgment, all while refusing to accept any of the good gods even as useful allies to continue the fight against evil with, than chances are when judgment finally does come, the Wall is no worse a fate than having to deal with what you clearly consider to be obnoxious preaching for the rest of eternity. Since you would get that preaching whether you accepted a god or found a loophole to make it to an alignment plane, that isn't much of a solution, and could actually be worse. The god would probably be a lot more willing to accept a bit of apathy and, maybe even some minor dissent on methodology, as long as they got the power of your soul in return. Celestials would be far less likely to accept apathy or debate.

I could see your arguments if it was still an evil god as god of death, and the Wall being far more likely to be used as a weapon of spite, but under Kelemvor, who has many good reasons to be neutral about that particular punishment, I just don't see your concerns being particularly relevant. If a soul is truly so resistant to the gods and their role that the Wall is even a remote consideration, than there is a good chance that they aren't going to find the outer planes being any better and the relative amount of pain and suffering promised by the Wall isn't going to bother them all that much. Or, the soul is just so apathetic that the pain and suffering necessary before final oblivion still won't bother them all that much. Any soul that fits your example and actually makes it to Kelemvor's final judgment still resisting the gods is going to be tormented regardless of the judgment; any external torment is going to be dwarved the torment the soul does to itself. The soul is at that point effectively like the dwarves in the last book of the Chronicles of Narnia series, sitting in the middle of paradise still believing themselves to be in a dirty, dinghy stable. No amount of help did anything to aid those dwarves, and no amount of help would aid that soul, so the Wall is almost a blessing for everyone involved, the soul gets eventual peace through oblivion, and no one else has to deal with the constant complaining of that soul for the rest of eternity.

 

[Mecheon]

I would argue that to most of the people who end up in it, an afterlife of any kind is likely to be painful and/or unpleasant, so for those people, the Wall is not going to be that much worse than the alternatives. Even going to a plane of existence that lines up with their alignment probably wouldn't be that great; if you disbelieve actively present gods to that degree, living for eternity in a place filled with extraplanar beings that are more distant from your world while so attuned to their beliefs that they were willing to become beings that embody them even more than the gods do is likely not going to be a particularly pleasant prospect. At least the Wall offers the promise of eventual oblivion.

If you go by NWN 2, MotB (The second greatest story told in a D&D video game, first being PS:T), its... Not any sort of promise

Kaelyn the Dove (Former Doomguide of Kelemvor, since turned to Illmater due to the whole Wall of the Faithless thing) points out it, and, well, let's just quote her firsthand on this. Behold how a celestial can lose their faith

"To comfort a dying child, knowing that it is destined to scream eternally in an ever-living wall. A midwife of the Planes, who has never heard of such a thing as gods, an entire plane of seawives who farm the sea and seed the oceans to bring about life... To know they are bound to become stones in a wall of a faithless citadel, crushed together by dogma and ritual that has never once been reflected upon. That never once has been examined for what it is"

"They are mortared there, crushed together to suffer by archaic law. No matter how good, or pure, or unselfish they were - it matters only if they followed the proper rituals to a deity, any deity."
(your character): "You value one's deeds and heart over their devotion, then."
"Religion is not ritual. It is intended to comfort, to strengthen, not to punish. Is lip service to a god... is that what is important? Or is it the acts and belief that matter?"

There you have it, right from the Dove's mouth. Mind, this is circa 3.5E, so they might have changed since

 

[MonsterEnvy]

If you go by NWN 2, MotB (The second greatest story told in a D&D video game, first being PS:T), its... Not any sort of promise

Kaelyn the Dove (Former Doomguide of Kelemvor, since turned to Illmater due to the whole Wall of the Faithless thing) points out it, and, well, let's just quote her firsthand on this. Behold how a celestial can lose their faith

"To comfort a dying child, knowing that it is destined to scream eternally in an ever-living wall. A midwife of the Planes, who has never heard of such a thing as gods, an entire plane of seawives who farm the sea and seed the oceans to bring about life... To know they are bound to become stones in a wall of a faithless citadel, crushed together by dogma and ritual that has never once been reflected upon. That never once has been examined for what it is"

"They are mortared there, crushed together to suffer by archaic law. No matter how good, or pure, or unselfish they were - it matters only if they followed the proper rituals to a deity, any deity."
(your character): "You value one's deeds and heart over their devotion, then."
"Religion is not ritual. It is intended to comfort, to strengthen, not to punish. Is lip service to a god... is that what is important? Or is it the acts and belief that matter?"

There you have it, right from the Dove's mouth. Mind, this is circa 3.5E, so they might have changed since

Tell what is Kelemvor's thoughts on the Wall.

 

[sunshadow21]

There you have it, right from the Dove's mouth. Mind, this is circa 3.5E, so they might have changed since

Everything people have mentioned from 5E seems to indicate that oblivion does come eventually. Also, many of the restrictions on what could be counted as faithless seem to have been reduced as well; 5E material seems to suggest that it takes a fair bit of effort to be ruled truly faithless. If the interpretation were still as strong as the quoted material, than I would have no problem accepting the Wall as something considerably more problematic, but with 5E they have opened up the possible interpretations. It can be as narrow as above quote or as wide and tolerant as modern thought provides according to the wishes of the DM. There is nothing about the Wall, the Fugue Plane, or the judgment process as it stands now that jump out at me as being particularly problematic unless you really want to make it that way.

The other issue is that if a soul is truly to the point of the dwarves from Narnia, and they pretty much have to be to meet the typical definition I've seen from 5E examples, is even that much pain going to be noticeable? If the soul has already inflicted that level of torment on itself, no external source, not even the Wall, is going to have much impact.

 

[I'm A Banana]

Nope. Most people don't care beyond having a cozy life for their small circle of family and friends.

Is that all you care about? Because everyone I know cares about doing what they can to make the world a better place for everyone they can. Some in small ways, some in large, some in ways that conflict with others, but it is absolutely something that every single person I know cares about. It bothers them that innocent children are suffering half a world away, for instance, or when they hear about a tragedy on the news. They have empathy for people they aren't directly responsible for.

I do need my fictional people to have that empathy, too, or they become entirely unbelievable as people. I find a world of sociopaths who don't care about others' suffering (beyond their monkeysphere of a couple-dozen) to be deeply alien and incomprehensible, not to mention that each individual person in that world would simply be off-putting as characters in a narrative.

It's held by billions of RL people, so there must be something about this world-view that attracts people or simply doesn't make them care
Wait, so there are such religions in RL? And billions of people have no problem following religions that create this ultimate injustice in existence?
For some sure. For billions believers in these religions they not only don't care, but even agree that the non-believers should be punished in the afterlife

That's mischaracterizing the world-view of billions of people, actually. There are several quite thoughtful responses to the Problem of Hell that maintain a truly benevolent deity while allowing for some kind of divine punishment. These solutions are pretty much not available within the fictional construct that FR has set up for itself.

Like, the idea that an FR god like Tyr can come to you while you're hanging out on the Fugue and say "Hey, come on, join my team, I think you're worthy, just sign up with me!" and thus save the soul from eternal torment is, superficially, like C. S. Lewis's answer to the Problem of Hell - that it is self-imposed by those who reject salvation, and is always available to those who accept it. Except that C. S. Lewis's God is the transcendent creator and sustainer of all that is truly good, while Tyr is just one powerful magical being among many in one world among many and who is, by his inaction, allowing a great injustice to come into existence. The resolution Lewis uses isn't available to FR because their gods are fundamentally very different things, and their punishments are for completely unrelated offenses. Lewis's God allows punishment as a consequence of its nature - an individual who suffers embraces that suffering, and if they no longer desire that suffering, they are forgiven. Tyr allows punishment because, what, he got out-voted?

There are even people who seem to get their kick not so much from what their religion does to them, but from feeling superior due to what their religion does to non-believers.

Here you seem to mistake schadenfreude and tribalism for a metaphysical axiology. It's understandable - some actors try to mask the former two things as the latter thing in an attempt to globalize their in-group/out-group distinctions, and so they speak like they're the same thing - but it's pretty easy to see the difference when you look at the function of the speech. I could buy a world where the FR folk were like that - asserting that nonbelievers in God X suffer because they identify God X as the best and themselves as the best. And then the people who believe in God Y do the same. And so on. You could even have one be right, and so all the others would be punished in some way. But then you lose the pantheonic polytheism and the "God OF X" appellations so popular in D&D-land. I mean, you can't have a coherent metaphysical axiology around "The God of Swords is the best" as a truth about the world-building. That's part of the mess that FR is running into with the Wall, of course.

Thus you could rent your evacuation spelljammers for a two-way trip as you'll likely be able to find just as many dickheads from other worlds wanting to migrate to Toril because of the wall than you'd find people wanting to get away from Toril because of it

That'd be a pretty wildly unbelievable element to include in a narrative.

 

[MonsterEnvy]

Like, the idea that an FR god like Tyr can come to you while you're hanging out on the Fugue and say "Hey, come on, join my team, I think you're worthy, just sign up with me!" and thus save the soul from eternal torment is, superficially, like C. S. Lewis's answer to the Problem of Hell - that it is self-imposed by those who reject salvation, and is always available to those who accept it. Except that C. S. Lewis's God is the transcendent creator and sustainer of all that is truly good, while Tyr is just one powerful magical being among many in one world among many and who is, by his inaction, allowing a great injustice to come into existence. The resolution Lewis uses isn't available to FR because their gods are fundamentally very different things, and their punishments are for completely unrelated offenses. Lewis's God allows punishment as a consequence of its nature - an individual who suffers embraces that suffering, and if they no longer desire that suffering, they are forgiven. Tyr allows punishment because, what, he got out-voted?

I am not suited to discuss the rest of this but I have some points here.

Tyr can't come to you while you are hanging on the Fugue. You have to call for him or else he literally can't do anything to that soul. Even Mystara who misused her power as god of magic soon after she became a god, could not do anything when her favorite mortal was driven insane and rejected her in his insanity (Killing himself over accepting her help even). She tried and attempted but could not claim him or convince him even directly stating to him that if he just said her name in nice way she would be able to take him. All of the later stuff was noted as being a massive misuse of divine powers and laws, but even ignoring the laws as she tried she could not take his soul in even though she wanted to.

Mystara's outright ignoring the divine laws led Tyr to temporally imprison her. Until her, Kelemvor and Cryic's trial. (The Greater Gods by majority vote decided to try Cyric for his incompetence in his role as the god of strife. Cryic turned this and pointed out that Kelemvor and Mystara were as incompetent as he was.) Tyr is the upholder of Divine Laws and is put in charge of almost everything that requires the gods to agree on something. Even though he personally disagrees with stuff like the Wall. It is not his role or place to intervine in it. The same with many other gods. As the one who has to uphold the Laws Tyr above all other gods can't go against them.

Kelemvor is now the only god who can decide to get rid of the Wall. And he is of the opinion that it is a necessary evil.

 

[Mecheon]

Tell what is Kelemvor's thoughts on the Wall.

Its from right at the end of the game, but here's his comments (Before he gets into why he hasn't, y'know, destroyed you at this point and more spoilery moments)

"Do you understand what you risk? Bring down the Wall, and mortals will see that they cannot be held to account for their faith. On that day, mortals will put faith aside. And the gods will bring vengeance upon them all."

 

[MonsterEnvy]

Its from right at the end of the game, but here's his comments (Before he gets into why he hasn't, y'know, destroyed you at this point and more spoilery moments)

"Do you understand what you risk? Bring down the Wall, and mortals will see that they cannot be held to account for their faith. On that day, mortals will put faith aside. And the gods will bring vengeance upon them all."

Yeah I checked here is the scene in question. (Though the Video does not completely go into the matter from what it seems.) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sJshW86ptv0

 

[Mirtek]

Is that all you care about?

Mostly. Me and most people in the world.

Aka "Oh, this ad with the hungry african child with flies all over it's face was sad and I sho.. OMG the next ad just said it's cybermonday on Amazon again, I need to buy so much cool stuff for myself!"

Just look at millions all over Europe, and even the many people in the so far hardly affected US, demonstrating against taking in the refugees from Africa and Middle East, lest it means they are forced to downgrade to 1.5 ton cars instead of their 2.2 SUVs

Because everyone I know cares about doing what they can to make the world a better place for everyone they can.

Then you're living in a nice sheltered circle of people.

It bothers them that innocent children are suffering half a world away, for instance, or when they hear about a tragedy on the news. They have empathy for people they aren't directly responsible for.

Bothering in a sense of a short shake of the head while saying "well, that's bad"? Yes. Bothering in a way that they actually do something, however small, about it? No. It's unknown people far way, quickly forgotten.

Most people rather spend money to upgrade their meal to super-size and throw a third of it way because it's too much than donating to feed the world. Buy the newest smartphone ever 1-2 years without care how much blood and environmental damage sticks to the coltan and other rare earths used to manufacture it or under which circumstances some poor exploited worker put it together in his 16 hour shift. Or caring how much wage the seamstress could have been paid for the $5 shirt that was also shipped half around the world and includes the mark-up of 3 distributers in these $5

There are several quite thoughtful responses to the Problem of Hell that maintain a truly benevolent deity while allowing for some kind of divine punishment.

And most don't really care about them.

Here you seem to mistake schadenfreude and tribalism for a metaphysical axiology. It's understandable - some actors try to mask the former two things as the latter thing in an attempt to globalize their in-group/out-group distinctions, and so they speak like they're the same thing - but it's pretty easy to see the difference when you look at the function of the speech.

This doesn't matter at all. Even declaring themselves as followers of this religion for the wrong reasons, they're still followers of this religion and especially evil FR deities would get just as much power from them as from followers chosing his faith for more educated reasons

Except that C. S. Lewis's God is the transcendent creator and sustainer of all that is truly good

And in D&D cosmology good is not the real right and true pinnacle of the cosmos. Evil, Law and Chaos are equally true.

I mean, you can't have a coherent metaphysical axiology around "The God of Swords is the best" as a truth about the world-building.

It doesn't need a truth about the world, just a truth that is good enough for the Lord of Swords followers to choose to believe in for them to not care or even embrace the thought that non-believers are put in the wall. Until the day that the Lord of Swords finally conquers the cosmos and puts all believers of other deities and these deities themselves in the wall too.

(The Greater Gods by majority vote decided to try Cyric for his incompetence in his role as the god of strife. Cryic turned this and pointed out that Kelemvor and Mystara were as incompetent as he was.)

Which was also ironic because even during his trial Cyric was spreading so much strife that he got the greater powers on the brink of an all out brawl, which would have had cataclysmic conesquences

If you go by NWN 2, MotB (The second greatest story told in a D&D video game, first being PS:T), its... Not any sort of promise

Kaelyn the Dove (Former Doomguide of Kelemvor, since turned to Illmater due to the whole Wall of the Faithless thing) points out it, and, well, let's just quote her firsthand on this. Behold how a celestial can lose their faith

"To comfort a dying child, knowing that it is destined to scream eternally in an ever-living wall. A midwife of the Planes, who has never heard of such a thing as gods, an entire plane of seawives who farm the sea and seed the oceans to bring about life... To know they are bound to become stones in a wall of a faithless citadel, crushed together by dogma and ritual that has never once been reflected upon. That never once has been examined for what it is"

Well, Kaelyn should have done more studies before she started campaigning, as the midwife from the planes or the ocean plane of seawives would be outside of the faerunian pantheons jurisdiction. And even so most of them would probably pay homage to deities of fertility and the sea (quite a view of them again being deities of fertility) anyway even without ever having heard on the wall