The Faithless

If you have questions regarding Forgotten Realms or ALFA Canon, ask our experts here.
Post Reply
User avatar
mogonk
Dire Badger
Posts: 133
Joined: Sat Nov 13, 2010 8:48 am

The Faithless

Post by mogonk »

So, as I understand it, the faithless wind up in the Wall of the Faithless. Generally not considered a very fun place, and it eventually erases their souls, the lasts remnants of their being, from existence.

My question is, what about followers of The Way in Shou Lung, or The Way of Enlightenment in Wa and Kozakura? Those religions don't celebrate a deity, so the followers are technically faithless. In Wa and Kozakura, that is the dominant religion, in Shou it's a substantial minority. Are we to believe that there are entire nations of people with a strong spiritual tradition who are nonetheless condemned in this manner?

Or does the Fugue Plane and its accompanying designations only have an effect on Faerunians, with other regional systems of afterlives in Zakhara, Mazticlan, etc.? Several other pantheons have a major deity of death, so that would make sense (though I'm using the loosest possible definition of "sense" here). And if that's the case, what about a Kozakuran who comes to Faerun? Is he still a Kozakuran, or does Kelemvor's law now apply to him because he traveled over some mystical border?

The same question could apply to a Mulhorandi in Faerun. If he dies, which set of rules apply to him, Kelemvor's or Osiris'? What if he dies in Mulhorand?
thinkpig
Orc Champion
Posts: 466
Joined: Wed Aug 26, 2009 7:20 pm
Location: Wisconsin

Re: The Faithless

Post by thinkpig »

While this has little direct interest to my game or my PC I have to say... Damn, what an interesting question.

Before anyone else responds to this, and without suggesting that I hold the ultimate answer to this epic question, let me just say that that answer will not be the following:

If you are not the white man, when you die you're going to a place called infinite prostate exam.

Are you sure there isn't a deity that looks after followers of your character's philosophy? It would shock me if there is not. Your PC may not think of it as a deity but the characters beliefs and spiritual concerns probably fall somewhere along the lines of *some* portfolio or other. Let me offer some food for thought here:

Ever read any of Neil Gaiman's sandman? In Sandman the powers-that-be appear differently to different cultures. The 'endless' beings of Sandman appear at different times throughout history, always looking to the folks who see them like people of their own ethnicity and culture. It seems to me like in the asian-based fantasy setting regions you had an elements-based pantheon. I could conceive of a lawful philopopher bent on zen and calmness and the like having an affinity with water and a spiritual connection with it that functions as, say, a connection with Istishia, Faerunian deity of water. Maybe your PC has another name for the deity, and maybe he/she doesn't even realize that the personification of water some of his western cousins follow solemnly represents the same philosophy and virtues if and when he/she sees such a thing with his or her own eyes, all of which would be interesting RP material. Imagine how such a one would react to the church of Umberlee!

Not at all saying this is how it works, but I think this is definitely more imaginative than (and lacking in the racist roots of) the 'everyone but the white man goes to hell' line of thought. I assure you it is anything but that, and if no one can come up with a canon answer to this don't worry too much about it. There aren't big servers dedicated to what happens to you in the afterlife, and if your PC gets killed and comes back that doesn't necessarily mean he/she remembers anything, definitely not being part of the 'horrible wall of atheists', which this player feels is the lamest cop-out TSR ever committed anyway...
"So Mom, Dad... about that gold those guys brought me when I was a baby. You remember that GOLD, right?" - Jesus
User avatar
Brokenbone
Chosen of Forumamus, God of Forums
Posts: 5771
Joined: Mon May 16, 2005 1:07 am
Location: London, Ontario, Canada

Re: The Faithless

Post by Brokenbone »

The Celestial Bureaucracy files your Easterner soul into some kind of convenient vessel for the pagan ancestor-worship that your masterwork bastard-sword wielding relatives can conveniently burn incense for? Kelemvor may have a letter of agreement with them, the details of which would be far better left to say, a Planescape campaign.
ALFA NWN2 PCs: Rhaggot of the Bruised-Eye, and Bamshogbo
ALFA NWN1 PC: Jacobim Foxmantle
ALFA NWN1 Dead PC: Jon Shieldjack

DMA Staff
SwordSaintMusashi
Mook
Posts: 963
Joined: Mon Oct 10, 2005 4:49 pm
Location: Virginia
Contact:

Re: The Faithless

Post by SwordSaintMusashi »

I know as far as Kara-Tur goes, yes: you generally get reincarnated, or your spirit lingers to give your future generations strength through a strange class feature.

If you're a dishonorable schmuck, though, I imagine you go to the Wall with the rest of 'em.
Current PCs:
Zova Earth Breaker, Monk of Rasheman
Alyra Ashedown, Knight Commander of Silverymoon
User avatar
Brokenbone
Chosen of Forumamus, God of Forums
Posts: 5771
Joined: Mon May 16, 2005 1:07 am
Location: London, Ontario, Canada

Re: The Faithless

Post by Brokenbone »

SwordSaintMusashi wrote: If you're a dishonorable schmuck, though, I imagine you go to the Wall with the rest of 'em.
Maybe the Bureaucracy sentences you to write fortune cookies until some poetically phrased condition (maybe in haiku?) comes to pass.
ALFA NWN2 PCs: Rhaggot of the Bruised-Eye, and Bamshogbo
ALFA NWN1 PC: Jacobim Foxmantle
ALFA NWN1 Dead PC: Jon Shieldjack

DMA Staff
User avatar
mogonk
Dire Badger
Posts: 133
Joined: Sat Nov 13, 2010 8:48 am

Re: The Faithless

Post by mogonk »

thinkpig wrote: Ever read any of Neil Gaiman's sandman? In Sandman the powers-that-be appear differently to different cultures. The 'endless' beings of Sandman appear at different times throughout history, always looking to the folks who see them like people of their own ethnicity and culture. It seems to me like in the asian-based fantasy setting regions you had an elements-based pantheon.
Shugendo, one of the animist traditions of Kara-Tur can very easily be correlated to worship of the elemental deities. But The Way of Enlightenment et al are very different, with nothing even loosely resembling worship, let alone the concept of a deity.

From what Musashi is saying, your afterlife is determined by your belief system. If you worship a Mulhorandi deity, you wind up with Osiris. If you follow the Way of Enlightenment, you get reincarnated. If you follow the Path of Enlightenment (confusingly similar name, totally different religion) you live on as an ancestor spirit.

And yet, if you don't believe in anything at all, you still get stuck with Kelemvor's bizarro form of justice. That's odd. I mean, if belief, and not geographical location, is the arbiter of what system applies to you, then why does someone who doesn't follow a god in Faerun wind up dealing with the Faerunian god of death, as opposed to the Maztican god of death, etc.? For people who worship a deity, their choice of deity determines what system applies, and for people who don't, it's determined by geography, of all things.

How weird is that?
SwordSaintMusashi
Mook
Posts: 963
Joined: Mon Oct 10, 2005 4:49 pm
Location: Virginia
Contact:

Re: The Faithless

Post by SwordSaintMusashi »

Well, no matter where you are in Toril, no matter what you do, you end up on the Fugue Plane under Kelemvor. He is the end-all deity of death and judgment in the Forgotten Realms. However, from that plane, your deity comes to claim you (I guess you have a claim ticket above your head). Those who remain unclaimed (The Faithless) get to party hard-core in the Wall until they dissipate. However, that is Kelemvor literally sentencing you there: you don't just wind up there once you die. So for the Way/Path of Enlightenment, it might just be a case of Kelemvor coming to you, and having you reincarnated/sent to become an ancestor power conduit instead of Wall-duty.
Current PCs:
Zova Earth Breaker, Monk of Rasheman
Alyra Ashedown, Knight Commander of Silverymoon
User avatar
mogonk
Dire Badger
Posts: 133
Joined: Sat Nov 13, 2010 8:48 am

Re: The Faithless

Post by mogonk »

SwordSaintMusashi wrote:Well, no matter where you are in Toril, no matter what you do, you end up on the Fugue Plane under Kelemvor.
I decided to look up the afterlife section of the FR sourcebook, and it says that the realm of Kelemvor comprises part of the Fugue plane, specifically the City of Judgement. The rest of the Fugue Plane is not stated to be under his control. It goes on to say that most souls wander the Fugue Plane until contacted by agents of their deity, but that "the faithless and false are compelled to enter the city and be judged by Kelemvor".

Compelled by what? If they're compelled by Kelemvor, then he has already judged them, hasn't he? It's possible, based on the information in the text, that after a certain amount of time on the Fugue Plane without being claimed, souls are naturally drawn into the City, that the compulsion in question is not active but passive.

By that interpretation, the most likely explanations are that either Kelemvor sorts out the followers of deity-less faiths and goes to the trouble of reincarnating them, or that there is some being or group of beings which collect and reincarnate those souls before they are drawn into the City.

If it's the former, you really have to wonder exactly what criterion Kelemvor uses for assigning the label of faithless. I mean, surely there are plenty of people who have a set of ethical and metaphysical beliefs that do not include direct worship of a deity in Faerun...but they're all considered faithless. But because in Kara-Tur they have given a set of ethical and metaphysical beliefs a name, and created traditions around it, that's not considered faithless. It doesn't sound like Kelemvor is judging faith in that scenario, it sounds like he's judging compliance to social norms.

If it's the latter, then who the hell is doing it?
Last edited by mogonk on Mon Dec 20, 2010 11:21 pm, edited 1 time in total.
User avatar
Brokenbone
Chosen of Forumamus, God of Forums
Posts: 5771
Joined: Mon May 16, 2005 1:07 am
Location: London, Ontario, Canada

Re: The Faithless

Post by Brokenbone »

Note I wasn't kidding about the Celestial Bureaucracy business, except the fortune cookie part. Anyone who calls themselves a ninja or samurai or whatever, is probably going to get "collected" by an "agent", it's just that they're not like an agent of Lathander or agent of Tempus, it's some kind of Easterner-appropriate functionary who presumably routes you on the merry way that your "Way" happened to promise.

And yes, cosmology got screwed around with since the time of 2nd edition Planescape, but "the East" has always had a weird place in sourcebooks, sure there's conflicts and contradictions, but some kind of vague "the beliefs of that whole continent will somehow be honored" scene is sort of a hand wave answer. If it wasn't, don't you think some Wu-jen or Shugenka or whatever would have done some divination that would have figured out "our whole belief system turns us into bricks of the damned!!!"
ALFA NWN2 PCs: Rhaggot of the Bruised-Eye, and Bamshogbo
ALFA NWN1 PC: Jacobim Foxmantle
ALFA NWN1 Dead PC: Jon Shieldjack

DMA Staff
User avatar
mogonk
Dire Badger
Posts: 133
Joined: Sat Nov 13, 2010 8:48 am

Re: The Faithless

Post by mogonk »

Brokenbone wrote:Note I wasn't kidding about the Celestial Bureaucracy business, except the fortune cookie part. Anyone who calls themselves a ninja or samurai or whatever, is probably going to get "collected" by an "agent", it's just that they're not like an agent of Lathander or agent of Tempus, it's some kind of Easterner-appropriate functionary who presumably routes you on the merry way that your "Way" happened to promise.
Right, but who/what are these entities? They aren't mentioned in any canon sources. Almost every single deity/extraplanar creature has stats and a full background in some sourcebook somewhere, so where are these guys? If they exist, they're easily the most mysterious thing in the realms.

Btw, don't quote me on this, but I suspect that Kara-Tur is not an entire continent populated by ninja and samurai. Just a guess.
User avatar
Brokenbone
Chosen of Forumamus, God of Forums
Posts: 5771
Joined: Mon May 16, 2005 1:07 am
Location: London, Ontario, Canada

Re: The Faithless

Post by Brokenbone »

They also have sumo wrestlers.

The canon is all stale 2nd edition stuff... mostly Planescape focussed. See this link as an example of what came up on Google, I am an eight hour flight away from my old beat down box of 2nd edition stuff hidden from the wife in the basement.

http://www.planewalker.com/wiki/celestial-bureaucracy

Humorously it lists a bunch of those wimpy snake-looking dragons (this Lung, that Lung) which were the stars of the very disappointing FR Monstrous Compendium way way back in the day. Open the god damn thing to find like, thri-kreen, twenty different dinosaurs, and a bunch of fruity dragons. Thanks but no thanks!

Net of the above is "yeah, there's some canon on all that baloney."
ALFA NWN2 PCs: Rhaggot of the Bruised-Eye, and Bamshogbo
ALFA NWN1 PC: Jacobim Foxmantle
ALFA NWN1 Dead PC: Jon Shieldjack

DMA Staff
User avatar
Galadorn
Haste Bear
Posts: 2483
Joined: Sat Feb 07, 2004 9:10 am
Location: Hefei, China

Re: The Faithless

Post by Galadorn »

I got a headache.

But at least I did get this out of this thread:

"BROKENBONE FOR KING OF THE WORLD!"

*sways back and forth, hums and chants cross-legged for 4 days fasting*
*Grand Master of Cheese*
Image
[causk] ((play games over the internet?)) yea, wouldnt recommend that. internet is for porn and weird people.
[DarkHin] There is always a tenth spot for evil.
User avatar
mogonk
Dire Badger
Posts: 133
Joined: Sat Nov 13, 2010 8:48 am

Re: The Faithless

Post by mogonk »

Ah, I see. The problem is that 3rd edition on has pretty much ignored Kara-Tur entirely. The choice to set the 3.0 Oriental Adventures sourcebook in an L5R world so they could market their other products left certain regions of Toril without any real sources.

So, based on what I could dig up from your lead, it seems that the deities of the Kara-Turian faiths that actually have deities handle the administration of the other faiths that don't. (Why? Don't even bother trying to figure it out.) They're now called the Celestial Empire, because someone realized that "Celestial Bureaucracy" is the goofiest name for anything, ever. Yes, I know it's a real thing in Chinese mythology. No, I don't care.

Surprisingly straightforward explanation for how it works, actually.
User avatar
Brokenbone
Chosen of Forumamus, God of Forums
Posts: 5771
Joined: Mon May 16, 2005 1:07 am
Location: London, Ontario, Canada

Re: The Faithless

Post by Brokenbone »

Remember though that the 2nd edition sources included what, "Legends and Lore", packed with the Real World's greatest hits in terms of religions except for anything Judeo-Christian or I think Islam based. This is to say, you would not find avatar statistics for Jesus Christ hammering on people with his Shepherd's Crook +5 and shooting lasers from his Crown of Thorns. Chinese, Egyptian, Celtic, Norse, First Nations, all kinds of other pantheons were fair game for D&D-ifying. Maybe out of fear of Chick tracts.

Settings like Planescape tried to unify all TSR products though. Gods of Oerth? Oh they live over on that plane. Faerun gods? They're a little further down the street. The Aztec gods, well, they're drinking blood over there by the Orcish pantheon which seems to be the same in every setting. Bla bla bla. Let's ignore all the gods and have 17 factions which are more important than the bunches of squabbling tough to reconcile gods (and how they interact with each other sensibly is only for divine minds to understand, off camera). It's the same sort of mess when you try to blend rules and have Spelljammers landing in a secret harbour in Cormyr (think in Suzail actually), no one's happy with the mishmash end product, and lots gets reconned away, but anything not overridden by new canon is assumed to still be good old canon.

*shrugs*

Bring me wine in the skull of an enemy! (check out Oglaf.com, NSFW)
ALFA NWN2 PCs: Rhaggot of the Bruised-Eye, and Bamshogbo
ALFA NWN1 PC: Jacobim Foxmantle
ALFA NWN1 Dead PC: Jon Shieldjack

DMA Staff
Post Reply