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

Hussar

Legend
/snip
Additionally, it's just mean. So you can live a good life, help your neighbours, do the best to support your community, but you happen to never have found a god to worship, and the response is that you just get tortured until you're dissolved. Why couldn't a good god take you on out for the effort of trying to be a good person? Why does it have to be the Wall of Faithless? Why is that the best option for everyone involved?

Since when is "fairness" been a part of religion? What real world religion is based on "fairness"? There are many, many real world religions where simply living a good life is not good enough so it's not really all that out of place for that to be in a fantasy religion.

Seems pretty straightforward to me. The gods in Forgotten Realms aren't some far away abstract concept that must be taken on faith. They are very present in the setting. Anyone who says to themselves, "Self, I'm going to be a good person. I'm going to be nice to my neighbors. But, I'm going to 100% ignore all these miracles around me and never, ever bend a knee to the beings that created everything around me, even though I can see Their works every single day of my life." is kinda begging for it.

It's a setting where faith MATTERS. And that's fine. Other settings, not so much. Eberron doesn't have the same dogma. Cool. Other settings take it even further. Denying the gods in Scarred Lands brands you a heretic and is a quick journey to the nearest stake where you will be killed and your soul condemned to the Abyss so that you don't promote worship of the Titans. Every setting is different.

I'm just rather baffled why this is so objectionable.
 

log in or register to remove this ad

gyor

Legend
This is a fictional mythology. Even some real world mythologies can be very brutal. Many gods in many historical pantheons were not very just by our standards and may have been considered symbols of justice and goodness at the time. I like pantheons and mythologies that twist things up a bit.

Heck in Viking mythology drowning in sea was horrible. And not dying in combat meant no Val hala.

The Greek gods were very vindictive.

It's important to seperate Greek Mythology from the actually day to day religious practice of the ancient Greeks and their relationship with their Gods. Plato found the Myths to often be impetuous and insulting towards the Gods for example, while the Neoplatonists tended to view Mythology is symbolic of higher truths. The Stoics had their own view of theology and the Gods.

Zeus in practice worshipped and usually seen as a good and just God, but you would rarely see get that from the Myths.

A religion is more then just its Mythology.

There were mystery cults, and different beliefs in different time periods, and regional differences. Unfortunately too much focus is on the mythology of the ancients and not enough on theology of the ancients.
 
Last edited:

gyor

Legend
Just a weird thought, but what if most of the Faithless actually come from Abeir, not Toril, a place where originally no Gods were worshipped.

Anyways not all the Gods of Faerun support the Wall.
 

MoonSong

Rules-lawyering drama queen but not a munchkin
“Frigging edgelord deities”. I’ll have to remember that one.



In my experience, I have witnessed the exact opposite of this, at least with regards to the players.

The atheists and agnostics are the ones interested in exploring the gods, faith, and the afterlife.
Meanwhile, the Christian players want nothing to do with such concepts, and find D&D’s general approach to such things “heavy-handed and distasteful”.
Yes, basically.

I'm just rather baffled why this is so objectionable.
Because, there's a cosmos beyond the Realms, everywhere else in the Multiverse souls go to the plane that mostly matched their alignment in life -save for extreme devotees of certain deities-. The Wall is actually placed so no soul can go to its rightfully earned afterlife. The Wall is essentially trapping everybody born on Toril so they can be held hostage to the local deities. All of it so they can gain more and more power...


Anyways not all the Gods of Faerun support the Wall.
That is basically lip service, as they actively benefit from it and do nothing to change the situation. In Faerun there are no good Gods, just evil gods and hypocrite Gods.
 

gyor

Legend
Yes, basically.


Because, there's a cosmos beyond the Realms, everywhere else in the Multiverse souls go to the plane that mostly matched their alignment in life -save for extreme devotees of certain deities-. The Wall is actually placed so no soul can go to its rightfully earned afterlife. The Wall is essentially trapping everybody born on Toril so they can be held hostage to the local deities. All of it so they can gain more and more power...



That is basically lip service, as they actively benefit from it and do nothing to change the situation. In Faerun there are no good Gods, just evil gods and hypocrite Gods.

That is a gross over simplication. FR Gods have limits to their powers, they can't fix everything.

Besides in 5e they make it clear only the worst of the worst go to the wall, among the false and the faithless, the rest get lesser punishments now, they nerfed the wall.
 

Because, there's a cosmos beyond the Realms, everywhere else in the Multiverse souls go to the plane that mostly matched their alignment in life -save for extreme devotees of certain deities-. The Wall is actually placed so no soul can go to its rightfully earned afterlife. The Wall is essentially trapping everybody born on Toril so they can be held hostage to the local deities. All of it so they can gain more and more power...

This is exactly right, but it seems people aren't willing to engage with it. Discussing whether a way of setting up your afterlife is fair should take into account how your actual neighbors are doing theirs, where theirs works just fine without the extras you have.

Given the enormous number if Greater Powers in FR compared to other settings that share it's multiverse, it seems that there is likely a connection. They appear to have it set up so that they get extra power by threatening you to choose a patron.
 

MoonSong

Rules-lawyering drama queen but not a munchkin
Given the enormous number if Greater Powers in FR compared to other settings that share it's multiverse, it seems that there is likely a connection. They appear to have it set up so that they get extra power by threatening you to choose a patron.
More like it is all but stated...
 

doctorbadwolf

Heretic of The Seventh Circle
That is a gross over simplication. FR Gods have limits to their powers, they can't fix everything.

Besides in 5e they make it clear only the worst of the worst go to the wall, among the false and the faithless, the rest get lesser punishments now, they nerfed the wall.
But how in the Hells does “being indifferent to the gods, entire” quality as “the worst of the worst”?
 

Lancelot

Adventurer
I'm okay that the Wall exists in FR, but maybe that's because I view the FR a bit differently than some. For me, it is an evil of almost Cthulhu-esque proportions. Other posters have already explained why: it prevents non-devout souls from reaching their "destination plane" (as based on alignment), it's a violation of free will ("You must worship us FR gods, or else"), and it's simply degrading. Even if the ultimate "reward" of faithlessness is a painless oblivion, being turned into bricks-and-mortar is quite the dick move. It's the smug deities showing that if you don't serve them one way, you'll serve them in another.

I've played NWN2: Mask of the Betrayer at least 3 times and, every single time, I've sided against Kelemvor. I know it's fruitless, but there's something inherently noble about fighting the impossible fight. It's part of the human condition. Death is inevitable for all of us in the real world, but we keep striving against it. Fighting the Wall, and the gods who would support its existence, gives me some of the same vibe. It's bleak, but I don't necessarily see it as edgelord... unless the author, or some of the audience, think that it's somehow justified or deserved.

I choose not to interpret the Wall as being a deserved fate for atheists, and I certainly don't buy into the fact that it's part of the "deal" (i.e. FR can't exist without gods, so mortals need to do their part). The Time of Troubles proved that the FR can survive just fine without its deities... many of whom are not even worthy of the title, and are simply ascended mortals who got lucky.

Frankly, I revel any time an FR deity dies or is majorly inconvenienced. I kind of despise them all. The Wall is just part of it. There's the Time of Troubles, the Bhaalspawn crisis, everything involving Cyric, the arbitrary ways that the "Chosen" are... chosen... and the stupidly OP abilities they gain. Hey, just because you suck up to Mystra the hardest, you're automatically better than any other mage can ever be through natural talent, or plain ol' hard work. That's inspiring, in a way... it inspires my characters to want to eradicate every Chosen of every FR deity. Bunch of over-rated sycophants.

So, that's my view. I see the Wall's monstrous evil as a feature, rather than a bug. But it's a complicated topic, in part because atheism and agnosticism are real-world belief systems. I don't know how it is in the US but, in NZ, both are standard (and common) census responses here. There are plenty of D&D players worldwide who would list themselves as agnostic/atheist. If I was building a campaign world myself, I probably wouldn't include a statement like: "If your PC is a [real-world belief system or philosophy], all-powerful entities will eventually turn your PC into building supplies and then condemn your soul to oblivion". But maybe that's just me.
 


Remove ads

AD6_gamerati_skyscraper

Remove ads

Recent & Upcoming Releases

Top