NOW LIVE! Today's the day you meet your new best friend. You don’t have to leave Wolfy behind... In 'Pets & Sidekicks' your companions level up with you!

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ilbranteloth" data-source="post: 6789658" data-attributes="member: 6778044">Alignment is inconsistently applied when it comes to religion and the cosmology of the Realms, and the defining factor in Realms cosmology, particularly in regards to the afterlife, is faith first, not alignment.For example, Torm and the souls of his Faithful reside in Celestia, which is a lawful good plane, and all that reside there are lawful good as well. However, the rules allow clerics to be one step away in alignment. So you could have NG or LN clerics of Torm. Where would they go? Do they become lawful good in the afterlife?The reality, is that aside from divine classes, an individual of any alignment can (and does) worship any deity. Since Realmsfolk worship all of the deities, 'evil' individuals worship good deities and vice versa. Well, worship is a strong word - they acknowledge and often whisper prayers to them, such as to say a quick prayer to Umberlee for a safe sea journey. But a lawful evil fighter could select Torm as a patron. My suspicion is that his actions will doom him as among the false.But alignment doesn't 'encourage' anything. If you go back to earlier editions, acting out of alignment punished you. Alignment is a short-hand to describe a character or creature's beliefs and general tendency to act within a cosmologically defined axis of good and evil. It's another way (along with the personality traits system) that helps describe your character, and helps a player to understand how that character might act in a given circumstance. In the 5th edition, not even paladins are defined by alignment. In the alignment section is says 'paladins are lawful good', but in the description of the paladin itself it says 'paladins are rarely of any evil alignment.' That highlights that adherence to the tenets of your God (or in the case of a paladin, your oath), is more important than alignment, which is as it should be in my opinion. On the other hand, alignment is a defining characteristic of extraplanar creatures. I don't consider alignment detectable or actionable by magic on a mortal - protection from evil doesn't affect an 'evil' mortal for example (and I'm not sure I agree it affects aberrations, either. Elementals and fey I'm on the fence about), but it does affect extraplanar creatures. That's because they are defined by their alignment, it is part of their very nature. It's not something they can change or 'overcome.' In my campaign, unless a PC specifically comes out as declaring themselves faithless (an atheist for example), or they act as false (declare a patron deity and/or belief in the Gods, but their deeds say otherwise), my assumption is that they worship the Realms pantheon as a matter of course, and that their deeds will determine which Deity will collect them from the Fugue plain. Most declare a Patron, and use that as an additional tool to help play their character.In other words, the faithless and false are those that actively deny the Gods, or falsely acknowledge them. I might also argue that, at least in the case of the false, it is not a good act. In most faiths, blasphemy would also be considered an evil act, and in some cases the denial of the existence of the Gods themselves is considered blasphemy.There are a great many things that could prevent a Good character from having a Good afterlife, which religions often define as sins. In the case of the Forgotten Realms, the doozy is to deny the God's very existence, no matter how Good you are. Whether you like that or not, as written it is one of the cosmological laws of the Forgotten Realms. But as noted, you are welcome to accept that or not as you'd like. Not to mention you can choose to use it or not in your campaign.Ilbranteloth</blockquote>

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