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

[Hussar]

I have a question for everyone....just out of curiosity, will this ever actually come up in anyone's game?

Yeah, I gotta go with this one here. Unless you specifically make it a thing, in which case the Wall is just as good of a thing as anything else, it's just never going to come up.

Secondly: If the existence of the wall is common knowledge, how can anyone justify the good gods letting it continue to exist/allowing people to go to the wall? The "Good" alignment doesn't include "Do what I say or I will hand you off to someone who will torture you and then obliterate you".

Read more: http://www.enworld.org/forum/showth...The-Wall-of-the-Faithless/page6#ixzz3rdCvyjJK

Jester Canuck has a good reply, but there are others. What's behind the wall? Is there any Realmslore that details what's on the other side? It could quite possibly be something far, far worse is back there and sacrificing unbelievers isn't a bad idea.

And, as far as, say, a Viking death goes, well, that only applies to Vikings right? Which means I venerate the pantheon as part of my culture. It would be pretty strange to find a Viking atheist in Valhalla. For the simple fact that it would extremely strange to find an atheist in a polytheistic society. Those destined for The Wall in Forgotten Realms are those that pretty much ignored the bajillion temples and whatnot of the setting. For a PC, it should be darn near unthinkable really. They never once got a healing spell in their entire career? And, if they were willing to take the blessings of the gods without paying any tribute to those gods, I'm thinking they probably deserve the wall.

But, really, at the end of the day, I think Jester Canuck has the best interpretation I've seen. Without the intervention of the gods, everyone would be stuck in the wall.

 

[Shasarak]

Well, for starters I'm sure there's at least one good aligned portfolio that would allow you to take petitioners who refuse to bow down in the face of threats of oblivion and then not enslave them...

The setting is wide open for you to add that into your campaign, like a crazy CG freedom fighter group fighting against All the Men.

 

[garnuk]

There have been a few running assumptions that I feel need to be addressed.

First, is the concept of "Lip Service". As I see it, there is only one way for a PC to be engaged in lip service, and it doesn't require any special judgement or discernment from the DM. That is, the player says, "I'm going to do X, but its really just a bluff, my character doesn't believe what they are doing, but is trying to act the part." Lip Service means that you do the deed, but have no meaning behind your actions. Its a simple concept.
In some cases, the character might be acting within the realms of one of the gods of deception, and in that case, they would no longer be doing lip service. However, if the character has fooled themselves into thinking they are not following the ways of deception, but rather just lacks faith in the rites that they wish to mimic, then they are given no afterlife. They get what they believe, that nothing in the realm of the deities matters.

Then, there is the question of Good aligned groups which try to make bargains with souls to rescue them. To me, this is a non-starter. If a soul is good, then they will be rewarded with their appropriate afterlife. If the soul is not good, then what is there to redeem or rescue? Why would you want to fill good afterlifes with souls that aren't themselves good? They would cause chaos and strife in the afterlifes that they join. Only the Evil aligned groups would have use for such people.

Why do the Good deities allow for the wall to exist? Because the wall is a good thing. Its better that a faithless soul cease to exist, and be made useful and have a purpose in their loss of identity, rather than having all these lost souls wander aimlessly as homeless souls. Those who are faithless and false, have no conviction, they have no desire to subdue some part of themselves for the greater good. To them, it is just about themselves and what they get out of it. These are not personalities that the Good aligned deities want to encourage. And so they make something of them, and give them purpose, and force them to subdue themselves for the greater good, as part of the wall. A reminder to other who might decide that being self serving and faithless is a path worth following.

For those who are arguing that somebody doesn't worship the gods because the gods are unworthy.. Such people are not faithless or false. They are being true to themselves. They presumably are not even giving lip service as they hold such worship to be beneath them and others. Such people, I would guess would be rewarded by the lawful Good or lawful Evil deities for being true to their convictions, and placed in the appropriate afterlife. Perahaps even given a special place and mission to help correct whatever causes the deities to be unworthy in their view.

 

[Sadras]

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

 

[Celtavian]

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

That was my take as well. The funny thing is I'm not much interested in following religions in real life. But in a fantasy game where the gods are supposed to be real, I like the world to operate as though they are, meaning people don't get a choice whether to follow a god or not. Gods are like modern people see the Ocean or the Sun, they are powerful forces that cannot be denied. They control the world and nearly everything in it. You follow them or you suffer the consequences in the same way you do if the Ocean rises into a tidal wave that strikes the land or the Sun explodes. You don't get to evade it because you don't like what's happening. You don't get to deny the gods for they are real. You pray to the appropriate one at the appropriate time, even then maybe things don't work out.

I don't care how individuals run their games making the gods a big or small or non-existent part of their campaign. If you are going to have deities, then they should matter in a big way and the player character don't get to play as though they don't exist. This isn't some philosophical discussion or disagreement. The gods have real power and exercise it in the world for all to see. And it is reproducible over and over and over again the same as science in the modern world can replicate an experiment. Gods don't like non-believers. Priests don't like them. Consequences should heavy on those that choose such a path to ensure others do not follow the same path. Just as it is in real world real religious doctrines.

 

[pemerton]

One of the things that has always got under my skin about FR was that if you didn't pick a patron deity for your character, your afterlife was to get stuck in a wall, regardless of your actions in life.

<snip>

My main issue here is that this is basically a punishment in the lore for any character whose player doesn't want to bother wading through the massive list of deities and picking one that they like.

<snip>

At the table, this is basically an assured Bad Ending for your character, unless you do the homework required to pick one god out of FR's vast and unwieldy menagerie of them.

I'm not quite following the move here from character to player. Why, as a player, can't I just say "My PC serves the appropriate patron deity, and says prayers to him/her every night"? I don't bother to specify my PC's shoe size, yet everyone accepts that my PC has feet. Why do I, as a player, have to bother specifying the patron deity.

If it matters to the GM, s/he can tell me who my patron deity is, based on his/her knowledge of my PC's background, profession etc - just as the GM normally decides what a given PC's native language is.

 

[Mirtek]

I IF there was time for this or for demons/devils make their picks, then RAW it could be seen as rather short.

Actually there was a time for this. It was 1dX days or weeks. Don't remember the exact value but longer than a PC usually stays dead

 

[Delazar]

Why is it even called "the Wall of the Faithless"? I mean, "faith" implies belief in something whose existence is unproven... but in FR people KNOW that the gods are real...

reminds me of this scene between John Constantine and the angel Gabriel

JC - What does he want from me?

G - Only the usual. Self-sacrifice, belief.

JC - Oh, I believe, for chrissake.

G - No, no, you know. And there's a difference. You've seen.

 

[Al2O3]

If I would make a PC in the Forgotten Realms (currently I am the only DM in my group using FR) it might be a warlock or a dragonborn, and in that case The Wall would possibly become significant to my roleplaying of the character.

The wall makes worship of Asmodeus and deals with devils a more reasonable thing, and even if a pact would not make sure that the soul ended up in the Nine Hells, it would still be in peril. If I wanted the pact part of playing a warlock to matter I would probably do it by inserting a flaw that my character fears the wall, but fears the Hell even more. So that's one way having the Wall included could add to a campaign.

In the case of Dragonborn I think it adds a bit to their culture. They are generally displaying the attitude of "sure, healing from clerics can be nice and all, but the gods still seem to be jerks and we have no reason to worship them. We'll just keep relying on our clan and handle things without them. I don't care if I end up in some wall, just screw the gods I say." So the Wall will probably end up with a lot of souls from dragonborn, and those dragonborn might not even care.

Another thing: becoming a part of the wall and then going into oblivion seems like a better thing than just walking endlessly on the surrounding plane with no aim.

Regarding patron deity I read it not so much as "you must prioritise this god" as "you pray to all the gods when it's relevant based on their portfolio, making sacrifices and such. Based on your actions and worship, one deity starts liking you a bit extra and might answer your prayers a bit faster or more often in life and invite you to their realm after death. This is your patron deity."

So for characters who truly say "I don't want anything to do with gods and don't really care about my afterlife" it probably makes sense to have some way of removing the soul. And since they need to go into oblivion one way or another and they seem to lack a quick way of doing so (or because the souls should get a chance to change their minds) it makes sense to me to use the souls for something useful.

 

[I'm A Banana]

The Deities of the Forgotten Realms are not all powerful so maybe it is not that they are totally fine with the Wall of the Faithless, it is that they are not able to do anything about it directly.

Even Mystra, Goddess of Magic, is unable to prevent Evil spell casters from accessing the Weave for example.

So yeah, if you want to follow a God that is able to single handedly destroy Evil then the FR Deities probably will not be able to fulfill your expectations

Nah, the idea is that I might want to follow a god who understands the concept of Justice, and isn't cool with good people who accomplish noble deeds in life being given awful, eternal afterlives.

In character its not your "magical best friend" but the higher being you sacrafice to occasionally to earn favour or blessing. Like in Rome where they praise and sacrafice to Zeus. Only more certain as praying hard enough gets you super powers. That's the culture, it's part of the setting. Playing a character that eschews the gods is going against the tone of the world. Like playing an armoured knight in a swashbuckling pirate game, a fearless kender in a Ravenloft game, or a western gunslinger in a fantasy game.

It certainly wouldn't be out of character in a setting where religion worked like it did in Rome to play a heroic character who eschewed the dominant state religion, and even one who might change the very nature of that religion. And it's not like the Romans cared about what the Gauls were doing, religion-wise - they weren't Romans, so it didn't matter. Like most polytheism, religion in ancient Rome was about your practices, not about your beliefs.

Also, did you read the section on Dragonborn? There's a group of characters who already think the dominant religious melieu isn't worth much.

So we've established that it's not a setting requirement to have a god in the same way that it's a setting requirement in Dark Sun that arcane casters are trouble - it's not an inherent law of the setting or its conceits. It is possible for it to be otherwise and retain its essential character.

Your soul is being saved and preserved from its natural fate by your god, who is rewarding your faith and service. It is being escorted to a realm they created specifically to house their followers rather than just being left to fade away or return to haunt the mortal realm.

This is D&D. FR is just one world among many. On any other world, you die and you go to the plane corresponding to your alignment. Why did AO and his little minions decide otherwise? It seems like its purpose was basically to force people to pay homage to a deity OR ELSE, which means the entire pantheon is guilty of a deep and abiding cruelty for the purposes of enhancing their own power. This is the kind of thing that should lead to heroic novels about overthrowing the unjust tyranny of the corrupt gods, not blasé acceptance.

Yeah, I gotta go with this one here. Unless you specifically make it a thing, in which case the Wall is just as good of a thing as anything else, it's just never going to come up.

Anyone who thinks this is a thing that isn't coming up is ignoring the last 6 pages wherein people give examples of where it comes up.

Hell, reading that made me think about my current HotDQ campaigns, wherein nobody who isn't a cleric has ever mentioned a deity. I suppose their moments of life-and-death struggle must be filled with people screaming "I won't be mortar today!"

Why do I, as a player, have to bother specifying the patron deity.

You could get away with leaving it background material, but if you take your characters' beliefs seriously, you encounter the problem right away. In this way, it actively discourages you to think about what your character thinks about. Not a great result.