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

[hawkeyefan]

They are gods because the setting says that they are gods. This is not a flippant answer. You have to be willing to accept a work of fiction on its on terms. In Star Wars, the Force exists for real. In the Dresden Files there are gods and Gods and people who might as well be gods. In "End of Days" you can kill Satan with a rocket launcher or something like that.

"What makes them moral?" By what standard? Post-Enlightenment Developed World standard? Why?

But the setting also shows them as fallible and petty and in many cases mortals who have been elevated to the rank of deity. Accepting the fiction on its own terms would include all of that.

The fiction has clearly demonstrated that the gods did not build the machine, they are simply larger cogs in it than mortals.

Let's change the scenario a bit. Instead, lets posit an atheist NPC. Would a theist character allow such an NPC to join the party? I'd think that the theist character would argue pretty strenuously against it. Sure he might heal the NPC once or twice. But continuously aid an NPC who's stated goals are antithetical to the pc's faith? That's a stretch.

The only reason the atheist character is being allowed in the group is because he has a PC halo. Otherwise the pc's would send him packing. It's unreasonable to create a character that is outright hostile to another PC and then expect that other PC to help you whenever you like just because you're a PC.

It's no different than making a character with wildly diverging alignments or making a character that is only interested in staying in one city when the rest of the group wants hexploration. It just does not fit. And imo it is not reasonable to expect other players to give up their character's fundamental aspects just so you can play a concept.

In a group with no theist characters? Go for it. If you can get the rest of the group on board? Fantastic. Go for it. But no one at the table should sit down expecting other players to change their characters just to accommodate you.

Three things.

First, I'll give you my take on your scenario. The faithful character might allow a non-faithful NPC to join their group for certain. Your assumption relies on an absolute; that any and all who worship a deity must absolutely loathe those that do not. It is a fallacy. There are any number of reasons to cooperate with someone who is not faithful. Perhaps the character is a rogue and the party needs to delve into a dangerous dungeoun filled with traps. Seems like a pretty fundamental reason to ask for the character's help or hire the character. And there could be any number of other reasons. Seriously...I could type up a dozen scenarios where I can justify a faithful character cooperating with a non-faithful character. Do all your PCs worship the same deity?

You're also operating under the assumption that someone who is non-faithful in the FR has the dastardly goal of tearing down all the gods. But again, that does not have to be the case. The gods are known to exist...so it is not a matter of belief so much as worship. And perhaps a character chooses not to worship any of them. Perhaps he seems them as not worthy of worship. Such a character may look down on those that do worship, or he may not. Someone who chooses not to honor the gods does not necessarily want them destroyed. Again...it's not a binary choice.

Second, do you mind addressing the scenario I put forth to you? Wouldn't a truly good cleric of a truly good deity see doing good as its own end? Let's say your cleric comes upon a village that had been attacked. The cleric doesn't know all the details, the attackers have fled, but there are buildings burning and villagers bleeding in the streets. Does your cleric leap in to help? I honestly think that this is the crux of the argument there. What is more important, doing good or obeying existing power structures?

Third, regarding the game factor. There is no reason that characters with different world views cannot work together, and no reason that players cannot play them together. Can there be instances where two diametrically opposed characters can not work together? Yes, of course. But that doesn't mean it's always. I can easily envision a party where there is a non-believer....his life has been brutal, his people killed, his family enslaved...he blames the gods. He actively dislikes the gods. In his quest for revenge, he falls in with an adventuring group and a cleric of Sune sees him as a challenge. She wants to remind him that despite his pain and loss, that there is still beauty in the world...there are still things to love and be passionate about. So she uses her power to try and bring him back from this dark place he's in. Both characters can exist side by side, and both now have a little more depth than "I'm the Fighter" and "I'm the Cleric". Such opposing views can be beneficial to the game.


How many more such scenarios can we come up with if we actually try? It's really not difficult. There's no need for such a character to be much of a disruption or distraction. There's no reason such characters cannot be present in the game or within the fictional world of the game. I really can't imagine any players with sensibilities so delicate as to be offended by the made up beliefs of made up people. It's all part and parcel of the game.

 

[MechaTarrasque]

I think the problem is that all these hypothetical atheist characters are too focused on "making a statement." At best that is After School Special, and just as likely to be "character sheet says CN but plays CE" disruptive. Undoubtedly that is why it is a bigger issue on the forums than at any table. I can't say I have ever played at a table or ran one where anyone seemed really happy to be lectured on a regular basis.

To bring it back to the Wall. It is a corner case of a corner case. The postmortem state of a PC is pretty unimportant in most games (we even have a whole class whose gig is "sell your soul to the devil" [or fey or Cthulhu or what have you]). An atheist PC would have to die and not be brought back in some fashion in the thousands of years it takes for someone to notice them enough to dump them in the Wall, and then the party must find their way there to do something for this to be a storyline. This being D&D what % are we talking about? 1 game in 1,000? in 5,000? in 10,000?

 

[Phantarch]

In the Forgotten Realms? Godhood indicates control over a part of the world that that a wizard or PC caster could not control on the same level as a god.

I think this touches on the crux of the situation. I would add to that and say that godhood entails NECESSARY control over these parts of the world. I think some people view the fantasy world of the forgotten realms as functionally the same as our world: the natural world carries on governed by laws of physics and such, and the gods just happen to be powerful creatures that can influence it.

I don't think this is correct, though, in a world like the forgotten realms. I think the gods ARE the natural laws. In real world terms, it would be like having a personified god of gravity. If that god ceased to exist, GRAVITY would cease to exist. Everything would come apart, and everybody would float away. The only way to keep gravity is to ensure that the god of gravity continues to exist, and the only way to ensure that the god of gravity continues to exist is to worship it.

I'm not a Realms scholar by any stretch of the imagination, but I would say that there is precedent for this in the Forgotten Realms, as well. When the goddess of magic died, magic went haywire and stopped for a short time before she was reincarnated. This wasn't just a god blocking access, it was the death of a god causing a fundamental aspect of nature to be removed until such a god came into being again.

To be Faithless in the Forgotten Realms is an affront to all nature. To deny the gods worship is akin to saying that you want to destroy the world. An "atheist" in such a setting is akin to joining a crazy cult that seeks to destroy all of existence. These are the type of people who end up in the Wall.

Additionally, an atheist in the Forgotten Realms holds the same place of ignorance as those in the real world who have denied all the knowledge of science. An atheist in the forgotten realms is the equivalent of a person in the real world who believes in a 6,000 year old earth that is the center of the universe. In short, it's a VERY different paradigm.

 

[Xvartslayer]

[MENTION=5834]Celtavian[/MENTION] Yes, you've said most of that previously in this thread, I do understand the general gist of it at this point. What you haven't done is answered any of my second set of questions. I accept that you won't modify your iteration of the forgotten realms to accommodate atheists, but what is an atheist in the context of the setting? What specific thing do you need to do to qualify as one? How does a person who decides that they want to pick a specific god to follow and is past the research phase(if they went through one) of that decision go about doing that? In short, what do you actually need to do or not do to end up in the wall?

Is that "the question" you are were asking? I misunderstood then, I think.

So, "What to do to accommodate atheists?" (To paraphrase)

If it is a new campaign of standard FR I would ask the player why he or she was not willing to give a basic level of buy-in to the assumptions of the campaign. Of all the conceivable characters concepts, why choose one that specifically undermines core campaign assumptions and work against other characters and the DM.

"Would you rather DM? Maybe run Eberron or something?"

As to the more specific question - "How do you end up on the wall" etc - it either does not matter at all or it matters a great deal and the details depend on the nature of the specific campaign.

 

[hawkeyefan]

[MENTION=6801685]Phantarch[/MENTION] But when we say "Atheist" in the terms of the Realms, are we talking about someone who denies the existence of the gods, or simply someone who denies them worship?

As it pertains to the Wall, I think if there was a person who chose not to worship the gods, but was otherwise good in every other way...defended the helpless, fought against evil and tyranny, actively strove to make the world a better place...and a good deity allowed that person to suffer for eternity in the Wall of the Faithless, then I would say that deity has justified that person's stance that the gods are not worthy of worship.

And I do believe that the gods exert influence on their specific domains or portfolios, but those things don't cease to be when a god dies or is otherwise rendered inactive. Mystra died and Magic went haywire yes....that's one example. But Bane was killed, and tyranny didn't vanish from the world. When Torm died, paladin's didn't all go with him. In Bane's case, his portfolio was taken over by the mortal Cyric. Torm was shortly restored by Ao.

There is enough anecdotal evidence from the stories to support the view that the gods are not supremely powerful and deserving of worship as creators of the world and mortal kind. Certainly Kelemvor has influence over the souls of the dead, and he can exert that influence in a number of ways. Does that mean he created mortal life? Or the world? No...until a 150 years ago in FR time he was just a fighter.

 

[Irennan]

If the discussion comes down to running a game, it is extremely simple to just ignore the Wall. Personally, I've axed the Time of Troubles thing that led the god to depend on followers to survive (which would also make the Wall no longer needed as a form of insurace for the gods), and I don't have Ao in my Realms (on a side note, AFAIK, Ed's FR don't include him/it/whatever either). Either way, one could just say that the gods get power from worshipers, but they can survive because of the concepts that they represent and stand for, and will get more power when someone acts according to their tenets, willingly or not, or nurture what they represent. It just makes more sense to me, and it's way cooler (IMO) than the gods getting power because people decided to perform some random rite.

That said, I don't get why people are saying that the gods wouldn't get worshipers if the Wall didn't exist. I mean, A LOT of RW people follow some kind of religion, while having absolutely 0 proof that their gods exist. It's very unlikely that most FR people, that can even communicate with deities, would refuse to follow one.

 

[Irennan]

[MENTION=6801685]Phantarch[/MENTION] But when we say "Atheist" in the terms of the Realms, are we talking about someone who denies the existence of the gods, or simply someone who denies them worship?

If the former, well, the character would just be blind, and would be laughed at by other people. It would be like stating that, say, the stars don't exist.

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

I think the FR gods are much, much more powerful than people give them credit for. They have the ability to grant spells to their followers everywhere in the multiverse. Which means they have to be able to receive prayers from anyone, anywhere who gives them to them and they can channel the power of level 9 spells to every one of their followers who are powerful enough to cast such things. They may not be omnipotent, but they are significantly more powerful than "powerful wizards". In a couple of the novels they've pretty much stated that they can see and know what is going on around any of their followers. Anywhere without their followers are blind spots, however. Which is another of the reasons they want followers so badly.

In addition to that, it's been insinuated if not outright stated that they don't just claim "I am the god of death". They are the god of death because they have actual control over the force of death. The idea is that the forces of metaphysics are tied to them. They are part of them. When you roll a die, Tymora has a direct hand in the results of that die because she IS the force of Luck. All die in the world roll randomly because she wants them to. But people in Tymora's favor might have just slightly better luck than everyone else. Tymora could make all die roll the maximum results forever if she wanted to. She doesn't because that ruins the point of luck. She has been entrusted with the force of luck and abusing it too badly would make either Ao or the rest of the gods replace her. But without Tymora, luck stops being a thing. She is needed or a fundamental force of the universe stops working. In the same way that magic broke when Mystra died and went completely haywire when a mortal cast a spell to take the power of the goddess of magic because he didn't know how to properly act as the force of magic, which requires constant effort on the part of Mystra to keep running correctly.

A powerful wizard might be able to scry in an area for a while. A god scrys on the location of all of their followers 24 hours a day simultaneously. A god can exist in many places at once. Calling a god "just a very powerful wizard" is like saying the planet is just a "really big rock". True, in a way...but not the most accurate description.

Which brings me to gods dying. It was made very clear in the Time of Troubles novels that Greater Gods cannot actually die due to a mortal, no matter how powerful. Their spells and attacks would just fail to hurt them. Which is why it became such a big deal with Ao trapped them in their Avatars and sent them to Toril. They could now be killed. The book made a big deal about how most of them didn't really know what fear was because they couldn't be harmed. But now, there was a real danger of it.

Gods have died before but only during the Time of Troubles, running out of followers, or being killed by another god. They aren't immune to attacks from other gods, that much is certain. It's not even clear if the lesser gods can harm the greater gods. It certainly isn't clear whether the lesser gods can be harmed by mortals either. It DEFINITELY isn't stated that you get the power of a god simply by killing them, even a lesser god. It's happened before but each time it happened it was explicitly called out as Ao agreeing that the killer was worthy of being a god and granting them that power.

Ao created the universe. He then gave the forces of nature and metaphysics over to the gods to control. When one of them dies, he can assign those forces to someone else since controlling and regulating the forces of the universe take time and effort he doesn't want to put in.

But that also brings me to the out of character reason for the wall. It reinforces the tone of the Forgotten Realms. I understand the tone isn't for everyone, but the tone is that the entire planet is very religious and the gods are very tied to to setting. A lot of the evil plots are driven by followers of evil gods. The resistances are organized by followers of good gods, and so on. Although it's certainly possible for someone to completely deny the gods, saying that all of them are jerks, they don't deserve to be worshiped and if you could, you would kill them all. But that person would go through life being out of favor with the very forces of the universe. They would have bad luck, their spells might not work correctly, they might lose battles when the odds were firmly in their favor, have difficulty starting fires, and they'd likely die when some sea monster attacked a ship they got on because they were out of favor with all the sea gods. In the end, even death would turn against them and they'd be stuck in a wall for all eternity.

Everyone KNOWS this is what happens to you if you deny the gods, which is why almost none of those people exist. It's certainly possible to play one. In the same way it is "possible" to play someone from the Rifts universe that has a suit of power armor who found himself on Toril. It doesn't fit in with the setting, but it IS possible. But, I would tell people they aren't allowed at my table for the same reason I don't allow people to use laser rifles in my game...it doesn't fit. That is what the wall is about, reinforcing the idea that in the FR, EVERYONE worships a god.

 

[Irennan]

In addition to that, it's been insinuated if not outright stated that they don't just claim "I am the god of death". They are the god of death because they have actual control over the force of death. The idea is that the forces of metaphysics are tied to them. They are part of them. When you roll a die, Tymora has a direct hand in the results of that die because she IS the force of Luck. All die in the world roll randomly because she wants them to. But people in Tymora's favor might have just slightly better luck than everyone else. Tymora could make all die roll the maximum results forever if she wanted to. She doesn't because that ruins the point of luck. She has been entrusted with the force of luck and abusing it too badly would make either Ao or the rest of the gods replace her. But without Tymora, luck stops being a thing. She is needed or a fundamental force of the universe stops working. In the same way that magic broke when Mystra died and went completely haywire when a mortal cast a spell to take the power of the goddess of magic because he didn't know how to properly act as the force of magic, which requires constant effort on the part of Mystra to keep running correctly.

I don't think that it works exactly like that: as others pointed out, we have examples of things that exist, even if the related god isn't there. For example, elves were alreaedy on Toril, even before Corellon, who has elves as his portfolio, found his way in. When Bane died, tyrants didn't disappear, and so on. Mystra is unique in that regard, because she literally *is* the Weave.

 

[Mirtek]

I don't think that it works exactly like that: as others pointed out, we have examples of things that exist, even if the related god isn't there. For example, elves were alreaedy on Toril, even before Corellon, who has elves as his portfolio, found his way in

because elves he has created elsewhere migrated to Toril.

. When Bane died, tyrants didn't disappear, and so on. Mystra is unique in that regard, because she literally *is* the Weave.

during the ToT a lot more than magic went wild without the deity to controller it.

Between Cyric stopping being Lord of death and Kelemvor taking over no one could die in faerun