D&D 5E Is the Wall of Faithless in 5e?

[doctorbadwolf]

The Gods are obviously real, they're obviously super powerful, and they make no bones about being in charge of what happens to you after you die. If the Gods are remotely like people, you can imagine they wouldn't look to kindly on mortal souls who deny them. Being an atheist or agnostic in D&D is nothing like in real life.

Worse, loose souls are the equivalent of barrels of gunpowder laying around. Devils use them as tank-fuel (not to mention just plain warping souls into devils), etc. So you could think of the wall as a toxic waste disposal system. If you're a big jerk like Myrkul, you'd render some punishment (again, mortals know this wall exists!) If you're Kelemvor, maybe I don't see Kelemvor letting this be so awful. But it is up to the God of death who gets the first crack at these souls. And generally the god of Death isn't interested in letting a big stream of unclaimed soul-power getting lose.

If I recall right, part of the (4E?) Raven Queen's issue was fending off planar soul thieves for just this sort of reason.

It makes a certain internal sense at least. If you want to say the D&D authors are being mean to RL people who are atheists and agnostics, well... they can play D&D without gods and the wall.

Or without the wall but with gods, like every other dnd setting.

The wall makes the gods Evil. Full stop.

Edit: like...a person who doesn’t care about the gods, would count as faithless. Also, so what if some guy believes the “gods” are just powerful people who found a path to immortality and extreme power? Literally so what? The idea of it being appealing to have divine retribution for such a thing is...disturbing.

 

[Parmandur]

It does seem somewhat redundant with Hell, Gehenna, Hades, Pandemonium, and the Abyss sitting right there.

 

[Seramus]

..a person who doesn’t care about the gods, would count as faithless. Also, so what if some guy believes the “gods” are just powerful people who found a path to immortality and extreme power? Literally so what? The idea of it being appealing to have divine retribution for such a thing is...disturbing.

Kelemvor was found guilty of incompetence due to humanity, because too much good in the prime material plane would unbalance the cosmos. So people go back in the wall. The way I understand it's a fairly peaceful boring process these days. None of that horrible torture business.

 

[Zardnaar]

It's because the afterlife in the FR world is very well known.

Say if you are LE your soul is going to the 9 hells. One way around that is to have a patron deity.

If the LE wizard follows Azuth the soul goes to Azuths domain.

If you believe in the gods your soul goes to an alignment plane.

The false are ones who screw the gods over and don't really believe and switch around willy nilly. Your soul is wall candidate.

The faithless are the agnostics and athiests which is a silly position on FR to take since the gods have walked the world. Once again it's wall material.

It's polytheistic, not everyone has a patron God but if the believe and pray to multiple gods they're not at risk they just don't go to a specific gods domain in the afterlife.

A gods power was also tied to number of worshippers 2E onwards. It's in the gods best interests to encourage people to believe.

 

[Xenonnonex]

If the Gods are remotely like people, you can imagine they wouldn't look to kindly on mortal souls who deny them.

If this is the case what is even the point of the people in the setting worshipping the gods? Especially as the gods are tangible beings of the setting.

If the PC I am playing is a jerk but the god they worship is an even bigger shite why even debase yourself to worship.

Worse, loose souls are the equivalent of barrels of gunpowder laying around.

The designers could have them reincarnate. They have them eternally wander. Having psychopomps who usher the souls would make sense here.

Having them mortared into a wall without hope of escaping. And then getting slowly dissolved into the Wall is the edgiest edge.

 

[Zardnaar]

If this is the case what is even the point of the people in the setting worshipping the gods? Especially as the gods are tangible beings of the setting.

If the PC I am playing is a jerk but the god they worship is an even bigger shite why even debase yourself to worship.


The designers could have them reincarnate. They have them eternally wander. Having psychopomps who usher the souls would make sense here.

Having them mortared into a wall without hope of escaping. And then getting slowly dissolved into the Wall is the edgiest edge.

Doesn't work that way.

In FR an evil being can go to a good aligned plane by having faith in a good aligned goddess. Mystara is the obvious one here.

Having faith in her can keep your soul out of the 9 hells.

Other people will follow a god because their portfolio lines up with a large portion of their life. Farmers for Chauntea.

The gods don't force you to believe but there are consequences if you don't.

In 3E it limited how long you could be raised or resurrected as well. No resurrection for you.

 

[Leatherhead]

The Gods are obviously real, they're obviously super powerful, and they make no bones about being in charge of what happens to you after you die. If the Gods are remotely like people, you can imagine they wouldn't look to kindly on mortal souls who deny them. Being an atheist or agnostic in D&D is nothing like in real life.

Yeah, but when they walk the world, they mess it up bigtime. Which is a good enough reason for a character to be an antitheist.

Worse, loose souls are the equivalent of barrels of gunpowder laying around. Devils use them as tank-fuel (not to mention just plain warping souls into devils), etc.

This isn't such an undesirable outcome, at least those souls will be used to hold back the demon hordes in the blood war.

 

[PsyzhranV2]

This is my interpretation of the arrangement. As a relative newcomer to D&D, I may have gotten some lore stuff wrong, so feel free to correct me.

From my reading of it, Toril is a world where the touch of the gods can be felt in all aspects of life. Their hands and their wills are seen behind every stroke of fortune and misfortune. A bountiful harvest is not mere luck or a farmer's wisdom, but Chauntea's blessing. Hurricanes and tsunamis are not coincidences of weather but a sign that Umberlee's wrath has reached its apex. The sun rises every day and shines upon the land because Amauanator makes it so. A prospering business owes its success to Waukeen and Tymora's presence, and Basheba's absence.

As such, unless you're an acolyte to a specific deity and are involved in clerical duties, the line between religion and daily life is... nonexistent. For the people of Faerun, they owe their lives and the world to the gods. Divine influence on their culture is pervasive. You go to work? The gods are watching. You come home to your family? It is the gods' blessing that your family is prospering. Your son has found a lover and is thinking of getting married? Sune had a hand in that. Your daughter has saved enough money to go to university? Oghma and Deneir will be taking interest in her studies. Your rival was interfering with your business but suddenly died of a heart attack? That was the hand of Hoar. And in some cases, that is not mere metaphor but actual, conscious divine intervention, and it has happened enough times that people have begun to believe that it is the rule rather than the exception. For in many cases, if a god is incapacitated, or neglects their duties, the rules of reality around their domain begin to fall apart. Tymora bites it? No more luck or good fortune. Auril disappears? No more winter, and summers become more intense.

So somebody who refuses to even give lip service to any of the gods, whether out of spite or for some other reason, would be seen as equivalent to denying the laws of physics. They'd seem as crazy and deviant as, I don't know, let's say an anti-vaxxer would in real life. And I don't know about you, but a lot of people I know really wish those people could get shut up in a wall. Or just imagine that you went back to Athens at its golden age and started yelling about how the Olympians are gluttonous tyrants and rapists that care not for the mortal man. You might be right, but you're gonna end up denied service at most respectable institutions at best, and outright mobbed at worst, if only out of fear that your blaspheming will cause a sudden chance of thunderstorms. Just ask Socrates.

I come from a really religious household, and while I'm only going to church as lip service nowadays, there's still enough in my upbringing left to grok how a religious cosmology like Toril's could be seen as remotely acceptable. I mean, is there any real difference between "believe in and honour God for it is God's will and if you repudiate him you go to hell" and "believe in and honour the gods for it is by their hands that the world turns and if you repudiate them you go to the Wall of the Faithless"? Hell, in the latter scenario, you have an all-you-can-eat plethora of gods to choose from, and will probably unconsciously end up with one of them due to the fact that pretty much every trade in the land has a patron deity that you'll be praying to to bless your work or crying out to in desperation if your business comes crashing down. If you were a good person - or even a bad person - in life who at the very least followed the ideals of their trade, there will probably be at least one god who will vouch for you when you're standing in front of Kelemvor's judgment seat.

 

[Seramus]

@PsyzhranV2 comparing it to the anti-vaccination movement it's very accurate. Because worship is literally required for the survival of gods, and the gods are required for the elemental stability of the realms, not worshipping the gods contributes to losing herd immunity.

Barring AO intervening if the gods started dying in droves, of course.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Kelemvor was found guilty of incompetence due to humanity, because too much good in the prime material plane would unbalance the cosmos. So people go back in the wall. The way I understand it's a fairly peaceful boring process these days. None of that horrible torture business.

Thats just very weird, and very obviously an excuse to return a thing to how it was while technically not using a retcon.

It's because the afterlife in the FR world is very well known.

Say if you are LE your soul is going to the 9 hells. One way around that is to have a patron deity.

If the LE wizard follows Azuth the soul goes to Azuths domain.

If you believe in the gods your soul goes to an alignment plane.

The false are ones who screw the gods over and don't really believe and switch around willy nilly. Your soul is wall candidate.

The faithless are the agnostics and athiests which is a silly position on FR to take since the gods have walked the world. Once again it's wall material.

It's polytheistic, not everyone has a patron God but if the believe and pray to multiple gods they're not at risk they just don't go to a specific gods domain in the afterlife.

A gods power was also tied to number of worshippers 2E onwards. It's in the gods best interests to encourage people to believe.

In DnD as in real life, harming people for your own self interest is Evil.

Also in DnD, alignment, and thus moral judgement, as above the gods, and they are just as subject to it as mortals.

The gods of Abeir-Toril are thus Evil. Or perhaps it is Ao that is Evil, since he determines the cosmology.

The idea of expecting people who remember the Time Of Troubles, Spellplague, and the Second Sundering, to revere and love any of the gods is pretty silly. To punish them if they don’t...yeah, that’s evil.

And super edgy edgelord from edgington.