D&D General What do you think about Wizard's canon changes for the Forgotten Realms?

[Scribe]

I was never quite sure what the required belief was to avoid the wall, the existence of a god or their specific creed. It seems like non-denominational people get thrown in.

2e Faiths and Avatars pages 2-3 "A person’s patron deity is the power that eventually escorts that person’s spirit from the Fugue Plain, the place where spirits go right after people die, to its afterlife as a petitioner in the Outer Planes in the realm (or at least the plane) of its patron deity. (Those who firmly deny any faith or have only given lip service most of their lives and never truly believed are known as the Faithless after death. They are formed into a living wall around the City of Strife—Kelemvor, the new lord of the dead, may soon rename it—in the realm of the dead in Oinos in the Gray Waste and left there until they dissolve. The unearthly greenish mold that holds the wall together eventually destroys them. The False, those who intentionally betrayed a faith they believed in and to which they made a personal commitment, are relegated to eternal punishment in the City of Strife after their case is ruled upon by Kelemvor in the Crystal Spire (Kelemvor’s abode in the City of Strife)"

3e Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting page 39:

"Everyone in Faerûn knows that those who die without having a patron deity to escort them to their proper judgement in the land of the dead spend eternity writhing in the Wall of the Faithless, or disappear into the hells of the devils or the infernos of the demons."

"Of more concern to most adventurers, a character who dies without a patron deity cannot be raised from the dead by any mortal means short of a miracle or wish. When such a character dies, he is considered one of the Faithless, and his soul is used to form part of the wall around the realm of Kelemvor, god of the dead. Mortal action cannot reverse this fate, and so unless the character’s friends can arrange direct intervention by another deity (or expend a miracle or wish, spells symbolizing intervention by another deity), that character is unlikely to return to life. (See the Cosmology section of Chapter 5: Deities for more information.)"

Page 232: "Everyone in Faerûn knows that those who die without having a patron deity to send a servant to collect them from the Fugue Plane at their death spend eternity writhing in the Wall of the Faithless or disappear into the hells of the devils or the infernos of the demons.
For more information on patron deities, see the Religion section of Chapter 1: Characters."

Page 259:

"While most souls wander the Fugue Plane until their deity calls them, the Faithless and the False are compelled to enter the city and be judged by Kelemvor. The Faithless firmly denied any faith or only gave lip service to the gods for most of their lives without truly believing. The False intentionally betrayed a faith they believed in and to which they had made a personal commitment.
All of the Faithless receive the same punishment: They form a living wall around the City of Judgment, held together by a supernatural greenish mold. This mold prevents them from escaping the wall and eventually breaks down their substance until the soul and its consciousness are dissolved."

Annnnnnnnd.....

It's gone. Not canon, stealth removed via errata.

Such is the importance of history and lore, to WoTC.

@overgeeked had it right in their post.

Like the changes? Best change ever!
Dislike the changes? Utter trash.

 

[Benjamin Olson]

At first I thought this blog post had to be based on some radical new announcement. I was a little surprised that it was all based on the same Chris Perkins article from July that basically just said that the canons between different editions and different forms of media didn't have to match.

To my mind if there is a problem with having separate cannon for Forgotten Realms novels, video games, etc. it is simply that the need for it is a sign that they should have refrained from making so many novels, video games, etc. and kept the lore of a setting designed for a roleplaying game simpler and more digestible for people running a roleplaying game. The need to make everything a multimedia cash-grab runs a bit counter to the needs of D&D tables trying to have everyone have a shared lore understanding and a reasonable level of authorial control for the DM.

 

[Faolyn]

I never understood the whole Wall of Faithless thing.

Other than the small issue of maybe being a wee bit offensive, there's the separate issue of not making sense. Think about it... if you are in a world with cleric casting spells given to them by deities, it would be pretty hard to say, "Yeah, those gods don't exist."

The problem, I think, is that D&D and the Realms seems to keep waffling between "magic is incredibly rare and most people will never encounter it more than once or twice in their lives, if that, and most clergy aren't Clerics" (which I recall reading was supposed to be the norm for the Realms in at least a couple of 2e books) and "magic is incredibly common, and every village has at least one low-level spellcaster in it and has multiple magical creatures living in the surrounding wilderness," which lets face it, is probably the way most people run the Realms.

If magic is rare, then divine spellcasters are rare, then there's no proof that the gods actually exist. It's easy to be an atheist then, and the Wall is... definitely offensive, but it kind of makes sense as a (horrible) setting detail. And there's no easy way to tell if the magic you see actually does come from a god instead of any of the other dozens of ways you can get magic in D&D. (Especially in 5e, where your favorite bards can also cast healing magic.)

If magic is common, then clerics are a silver piece a dozen and it's really easy to prove that the gods actually exist, and actual atheism should be basically nonexistent. So unless the Wall is made to hold the souls of Pascal's Wager-style theists, it makes no sense.

 

[el-remmen]

There is D&D canon? News to me.

 

[Scribe]

There is D&D canon? News to me.

And just so! It has always been the case, people can ignore, exclude, or change anything they wish.

Wizards was never going to kick your door in and ask you where Elminster was the night Candlekeep was broken into while your adventure was taking you to icewind dale.

 

[Jfdlsjfd]

I never understood the whole Wall of Faithless thing.

Other than the small issue of maybe being a wee bit offensive, there's the separate issue of not making sense. Think about it... if you are in a world with cleric casting spells given to them by deities, it would be pretty hard to say, "Yeah, those gods don't exist."

It's crazy! It would be like someone today saying, "Okay, I understand time zones, and space travel, and GPS, and all that, but c'mon ... the world isn't really round."

....oh, wait. Drat!

Actually, the offensiveness is exactly that. It's not, as far as I understand the complains about it, that it's a device that punishes in-setting atheists -- and as such, it's as offensive as an in-game device punishing practionners of any other real-life belief -- but that isn't the crux of the opposition. As an atheist myself, I have no problem with the Wall of the Faithless because, in the game, gods are demonstrably true. They pass the test. There is no reason not to select one of them (preferentially one who will get you to a nice afterlife).

But what can be found offensive by some other atheists is that the designers chose to make atheism a losing proposition in their story ; not that it makes sense for it to be a losing proposition within their narrative. They reproach the designers to use a Thermian argument because the designers chose in real life to make atheism a non-viable choice. While I can see this position, I think it also makes ANY real-life worship a losing proposition, since those gods don't exist in the setting and their followers in the realms would be sent to the Faithless Wall for worshipping someone who doesn't send a servant to take care of their soul. So, with regard to real-life philosophical choices, the FR story was "equal opportunity". But apparently, the Wall got removed. Which is bittersweet for atheism, since while it's a victory, the gods continue to be demonstrably true in the setting, so it remains offensive to those who hold the belief that there gods can't be demonstrably true. And instead of being dissolved and turning to a brick after death, the atheists will just... look like morons in the setting. Not really better if this is the beef to have to with the Wall, I guess.

 

[Demetrios1453]

Annnnnnnnd.....

It's gone. Not canon, stealth removed via errata.

Such is the importance of history and lore, to WoTC.

@overgeeked had it right in their post.

Like the changes? Best change ever!
Dislike the changes? Utter trash.

I mean, it can easily be explained away as "This, like so much else, is no longer the case after all the changes due to the Second Sundering." They may not officially ever say so, but it's an easy enough fix.

Honestly, all I got from the canon announcement is that the movie, video games, etc, aren't affected by the tabletop game and vice versa. And if they do play with pre-5e canon, again, "The Sundering did it" papers over pretty much everything. The new drow subtypes are the biggest change so far, but anyone familiar with the FR story of the drow knows that they can easily be retconned into that story.

 

[Scribe]

Actually, the offensiveness is exactly that. It's not, as far as I understand the complains about it, that it's a device that punishes in-setting atheists -- and as such, it's as offensive as an in-game device punishing practionners of any other real-life belief -- but that isn't the crux of the opposition. As an atheist myself, I have no problem with the Wall of the Faithless because, in the game, gods are demonstrably true. They pass the test. There is no reason not to select one of them (preferentially one who will get you to a nice afterlife).

But what can be found offensive by some other atheists is that the designers chose to make atheism a losing proposition in their story ; not that it makes sense for it to be a losing proposition within their narrative. They reproach the designers to use a Thermian argument because the designers chose in real life to make atheism a non-viable choice. While I can see this position, I think it also makes ANY real-life worship a losing proposition, since those gods don't exist in the setting and their followers in the realms would be sent to the Faithless Wall for worshipping someone who doesn't send a servant to take care of their soul. So, with regard to real-life philosophical choices, the FR story was "equal opportunity". But apparently, the Wall got removed. Which is bittersweet for atheism, since while it's a victory, the gods continue to be demonstrably true in the setting, so it remains offensive to those who hold the belief that there gods can't be demonstrably true. And instead of being dissolved and turning to a brick after death, the atheists will just... look like morons in the setting. Not really better if this is the beef to have to with the Wall, I guess.

As you say though, the Gods in FR demonstrably exist. I am an atheist as well, but the Gods were a big draw to me, as it's different from real world.

As I've gotten older, I think Gods introduce some issues that haven't really been deconstructed in any FR work I'm aware of.

 

[Vaalingrade]

The real problem with the wall of faithless is that in a setting where gods die more often than goldfish, Ao is still around, undisemboweled and tragically not on eternal fire..

 

[Stormonu]

It’s self-inflicted road rash.

Both FR and Dragonlance have rich and deep history for them. But it‘s been budged together over 30 years, with missteps along the way as things were developed on the fly, and now its finally collapsed on their own heads.

It’s easier for incoming authors and content creators to not have to deal with the bewildering pile of cruft they neither made nor like, so the easiest things to do is pull out the underpinnings and let it topple rather than just keep shoving unused/unwanted tidbits into the closet. It does open up new avenues to go back and rework old tropes or lore that doesn’t work, keeping the core of the lore and a tidbit here and there that they fancy.

It happens more and more to older properties - Battlestar Galactica, Star Trek, Star Wars to name a few. I don’t particularly like it when it happens and feel like a good portion of it is due to laziness as much as a desire to make things “their own”, but the old stuff is still there, if you want it.