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

[Mirtek]

Note that the FR deities do even more than just blocking faithless souls from escaping to the planes, on Toril there are also no clerics of a cause, all divine spellcasting must come from a deity. It stands to reason that the deities of Toril are responsible for that too, using their power to block clerics of a cause from gaining spells

In FR there's still physics tough (they're a bit off from our Physics, but they still exist). Things still follow laws. If you throw a dice, it is still moving according those laws, the possibility to change it implies the possibility to control its movement. If Tymora prevented a falling rock to hit someone on the head, she would also influence its movement.

Call luck what you want, even call it a force, but in those case, it would still affect movement. There's a point where you can't ignore that much ''common sense''.

If acting in her portfolio she can still only affect luck, which as an force unknown in our physics somehow affects the dice but only to cause it to bring good luck.

If she wants to just move the dice, she would need to cast telekensis or something similiar, which as a deity she of course could also easily do (at least should be able to so easily, but with 5e simplified stat blocks probably would lack if ever stated, poor Tiamat entirely without her "formidable spellcasting" that the Monster Manual notes her to be able to).

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

Actually that's not entirely correct. Mystra/Mystryl is the weave and without her there's no weave and all weave-based magic fails.

Yes, in theory because the Weave organizes the universe and makes it accessible to people instead of being a primal force.

Mystra is also not as old as the universe. As the quote you posted yourself explained, she was created after at least Selune, Shar and Chauntea. Her creation was the last even in the first direct skirmish between Selune and Shar at the beginning of Toril ((ikely some other deities of conflict and death predate her as well, springing from the strife between Selune and Shar before the attack that created Mystryl was launched)

Which, as far as we know all happened at the very beginning of time or possibly even before time existed as a concept. In which case, the idea of "the beginning of the universe" in kind of one that is hard to quantify.

But the point is that Mystryl was created out of pure energy, light and darkness in equal amounts and was one with the Weave. The point is that gods are made up of or at least control or tame the primal forces of the universe. They aren't just really powerful creatures that can be ignored as if they didn't exist.

 

[Irennan]

If acting in her portfolio she can still only affect luck, which as an force unknown in our physics somehow affects the dice but only to cause it to bring good luck.

If she wants to just move the dice, she would need to cast telekensis or something similiar, which as a deity she of course could also easily do (at least should be able to so easily, but with 5e simplified stat blocks probably would lack if ever stated, poor Tiamat entirely without her "formidable spellcasting" that the Monster Manual notes her to be able to).

What I meant is that this luck ''force'' would be basically able to affect anything, any effect, as long as said effect could affect a creature in any way. If by luck we define ''good thins happen to a person'', then anything that can influence a person falls under this definition. For example, Tymora would be able to deny a lighting strike in a certain position, because a person was walking by, or she could push the person to somehow escape. She would also be able to deny a lightning hitting a house, or stuff like that. She would be able to manipulate most kind of situations involving a person, or any creature for which a definition of luck exists. There would be situations in which she would exert a form control on portfolios that don't belong to her (a murder failing to kill their victim, for example).

The other examples regarding other deities, that 've made in another post, are also really weird.

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

In FR there's still physics tough (they're a bit off from our Physics, but they still exist). Things still follow laws. If you throw a dice, it is still moving according those laws, the possibility to change it implies the possibility to control its movement. If Tymora prevented a falling rock to hit someone on the head, she would also influence its movement.

Call luck what you want, even call it a force, but in those case, it would still affect movement. There's a point where you can't ignore that much ''common sense''.

What? Since when is that common sense? She doesn't move the rock. It fell in a way that it wouldn't hurt anyone. It was never going to hit that person. Unless they had bad luck, in which case it was. As it falls, it is in a quantum state where we don't know which way it'll fall....then luck intervenes and changes the outcome.

In real life, the only way to accomplish that is using the laws of physics. You have to PUSH the boulder so it falls different. When you can step outside of time and space, you don't need to use physics. You see both of the possible futures and you just pick one...that one becomes reality. If you assume her power works like that then it explains why she doesn't have infinite power to affect everything. Just the things that the universe decides are based on luck. Maybe there are "set points in time" that luck has no effect on. Gods are complicated and their powers are way beyond mortal reckoning. But the one thing I would avoid doing is trying to explain them using too much science.

An army wins because they have the favor of the god of battle. How that works? I doubt it is because the god of battle is manually moving people's arms around in order to fight better. It's because he has determined that they will be better...and so it is.

 

[Phantarch]

[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?

When we say "atheist" in the realms, I would say we are talking mostly about people who deny the divinity of the gods, not the existence. Denying their existence is tantamount to utter insanity. For the sake of this discussion, I would argue that "divinity" (what actually makes a god a god) is being the embodiment of an aspect of nature (be it physical, ideological, or whatever) and being a necessary component of it. An atheist would argue that the gods being necessary to the continued functioning of the world is a false assertion (e.g., Gravity will continue to exist even without Gravitron, Lord of Mass).

I would argue that "Faithless" would be anyone who denies worship to the gods. So, Atheists would be Faithless, but not all Faithless are necessarily atheists.

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.

I would assert that to ask whether the gods are deserving or worthy of worship is the incorrect question. The question is whether worship is NECESSARY. The Faithful would argue that it is (and indeed, the gods would as well). You don't worship Tyr because he's a great guy, you worship him because without him, the ideal of justice would cease to exist. If you believe in and fight for Justice, then by extension you would believe in and worship Tyr. Acting against the gods that are the embodiment of your personal ideals is self-defeating.

Additionally, regarding the Wall, the defense you are using is akin to saying that if a person decides to be a vigilante, steals guns and money from the police to do so, and murders every registered sex offender they can find in the name of justice, he should be given a police pension rather than go to jail. That's not the way the system works, and the vigilante is acting outside of the established order, and is therefore subject to punishment.

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.

Again, as I said, I don't have a firm enough grasp on Realms lore to know the nuances of every god that has died, but I believe that typically anytime a god has died, a mortal or another god has taken up the portfolio. When somebody else takes up the portfolio, they become the embodiment of that portfolio, allowing things to continue on as they were. Portfolios changing hands doesn't lead to destruction. However, if the gods were no longer worshipped, there would be no entity to safeguard those portfolios.

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.

Who said anything about needing to be supremely powerful and a creator of the world and mortal kind in order to be deserving of worship? This is a very narrow view of godhood that even in the real world is typically limited to the monotheistic religions. For example, the Greek gods were upstarts who killed or imprisoned their parents, and had nothing to do with the creation of the world or mortal kind.

Also, apotheosis is a common concept in many ancient religions, and such people were worshipped for what they represented and achieved, not what they were born as.

Even that aside, I still maintain that the real problem isn't being deserving of worship, but needing worship. There is a symbiotic relationship between the gods, mortals, and the world in the Forgotten Realms. The gods maintain the world, but need the worship of mortals to do so. Mortals need the world, so they worship the gods to ensure that it exists.


As a final thought, there is still the question of what constitutes worship, and this isn't necessarily laid out anywhere. Personally, I don't think this means showing up to the temple of your patron deity on Sundays and donating 10% of your loot. Worship is probably more in line with living up to the ideals of the gods and representing them in the world. So, when your character is about to overthrow a horrible despot, he says, "Tyr give me strength", not "Screw you Tyr".

 

[Mirtek]

(a murder failing to kill their victim, for example).

During which she'd likely be contested by Cyric (or Bhaal in 5e) and would need to "win the opposing check"

 

[Irennan]

What? Since when is that common sense? She doesn't move the rock. It fell in a way that it wouldn't hurt anyone. It was never going to hit that person. Unless they had bad luck, in which case it was. As it falls, it is in a quantum state where we don't know which way it'll fall....then luck intervenes and changes the outcome.

It wouldn't change the fact that ''luck'' has still influenced movement, a lightining strike, a fire and so on. It would basically influence anything that could happen to anyone, making Tymora/Tyche almost all-powerful, as long as events affect persons or creatures.

In real life, the only way to accomplish that is using the laws of physics. You have to PUSH the boulder so it falls different. When you can step outside of time and space, you don't need to use physics. You see both of the possible futures and you just pick one...that one becomes reality. If you assume her power works like that then it explains why she doesn't have infinite power to affect everything. Just the things that the universe decides are based on luck. Maybe there are "set points in time" that luck has no effect on. Gods are complicated and their powers are way beyond mortal reckoning. But the one thing I would avoid doing is trying to explain them using too much science.

Stepping out of space and time and picking up futures would make her even more powerful than I implied, it would still give her the power to affect anything that happens to creatures. No matter how she does it, she is still affecting/controlling stuff that shouldn't be of her competence. If she picked a future in which a fire didn't spread, then she would be effectively controlling fire (as long as that fire has the possibility to affect creatures). That's even more true for things that she can't make mortals control (for example: a mortal could existinguish a fire; but if Tymore decided to stop an earthquake from happening, or to diminish its intensity, then she would have to directly intervene). That's what I meant.

An army wins because they have the favor of the god of battle. How that works? I doubt it is because the god of battle is manually moving people's arms around in order to fight better. It's because he has determined that they will be better...and so it is.

That is easier to explain: he gives people the ability to fight better. It is much narrower than luck.

 

[Irennan]

During which she'd likely be contested by Cyric (or Bhaal in 5e) and would need to "win the opposing check"

Oh, I see. But at this point, what does the mortal's skill matter? Do the deities ''balance'' each other making their effect null? If that's so, then considering each kind of situation (in which she would have to ''roll'' against different deities), luck would become pointless. If instead the winner deity determines the outcome, then it deprives the mortal's action of much of its value.

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

Note that the FR deities do even more than just blocking faithless souls from escaping to the planes, on Toril there are also no clerics of a cause, all divine spellcasting must come from a deity. It stands to reason that the deities of Toril are responsible for that too, using their power to block clerics of a cause from gaining spells

A large amount of the FR material is written assuming that FR is the ONLY universe. Yes, periodically, some authors have written tie ins to other worlds and in 2e all the worlds were forcibly connected together using the Great Wheel. However, I tend to think of the words as separate universes entirely.

Each crystal sphere created in the image of the gods that are native to that sphere. They control everything about how reality works in that sphere: Where the dead go, how magic works, how you get your spells if you're a cleric, and so on. To make it easier for the DM, there's a "galactic default" that a large number of crystal spheres are set to. But I don't look at it as so much "blocking the ability to worship causes" as having changed their universe to a different setting. I like to think that the reason you are able to worship "causes" is that when they were creating the crystal sphere there was a drop down menu that said "yes" or "no". And if you picked yes, the gods had to give out power to those people who didn't even know their names. So someone who worshiped "Justice" still got their powers from Heironeous or whatever but they had no idea that was the case.

Ao, when he was creating the universe (or maybe the gods jointly decided shortly after the universe existed) decided that if someone was going to worship the gods in FR, they were going to darn well know the name of the god giving them the power.

It's possible to go to other worlds where the rules work differently, but all but the most learned sages or powerful wizards on the planet have no idea that things work differently elsewhere. It's just the way things work here.

 

[Mirtek]

Do the deities ''balance'' each other making their effect null? If that's so, then taking situation by situation, luck would be pointless. If instead the winner deity determines the outcome, then it deprives the mortal's action of much of its value.

Normally the deities make sure their area of responsibility runs smoothly and do not micromanage every single act.

So if Tymora specifically intervenes with the murderer's blade, this is a very special case and might be special enough for the lord of murder to try to intervene himself just out of principle. Normally neither of them takes a special interest and let the mortal's skill and luck decide it automatically, just making sure that neither is cosmically unbalanced at the moment