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Markustay
Realms Explorer extraordinaire
USA
15724 Posts |
 Posted - 25 Feb 2007 : 03:01:37
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Okay, some good stuff being thrown around here. Also, I just finished the novel Blackstaff which also has a little something to do with my newly modified veiw of FR religion.
During a character's life, he presumably picks a faith and at least pays it lip service. He is supposed to follow the 'tenets' of said faith, and promote his gods portfolio.
However, what we choose for ourselves, and how we see ourselves, is quite different then the reality. So now I'm thinking people really end up where they 'belong', which is not neccessarily conected to who they 'worshipped'. This means if you are a Wizard and consider Mystra your patron, and even occasionally say a little pray in her name when trying a new spell, you would feel you are a very good follower of Mystra. A few nights a week, the character goes down to the local 'festhall' and hires himself a bunch of 'ladies' for the evening. He parties all night, revelling in drinking and debauchery, and then goes home in the morning once again speaking a little prayer to Mystra to help him with his pounding headache. When he dies, he is surprised to find himself in the afterlife of Sharess, who as far as he knows he NEVER worshipped.
Get the picture? You serve the gods by your 'actions', not your words. Gods notice mortals who further their portfolio, and thereby indirectly feed the god/goddess 'worship power'. You go to whom you served, like it or not.
Now someone who was devout in their religion, like most priests, would go where they expect to go, as would a farmer who spent his entire life praying to Chauntee and farming. A merchant who venerates Waukeen, however, but spends his entire life lying to further his mercantile ambitions, could very well find himself over at Cyric's place.
Looking at it this way, it begins to make a little more sense. Without giving too much away, the character who dies in Blackstaff does not go to the domain of the deity he venerates, but instead goes to the realm of a deity who has a GREATER claim on his soul, mostly by his actions. I like that, and I think I can live with it. |
"I have never in my life learned anything from any man who agreed with me" --- Dudley Field Malone
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Edited by - Markustay on 25 Feb 2007 03:05:56 |
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Lemernis
Senior Scribe
378 Posts |
Posted - 25 Feb 2007 : 15:37:03
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quote:
Originally posted by Markustay...the character who dies... does not go to the domain of the deity he venerates, but instead goes to the realm of a deity who has a GREATER claim on his soul, mostly by his actions.
I prefer that too. In light of that, I want to add some summary points and expand more on the thought I've played around with so far about all this. Hope it's not too much of a ramble...
The notion of a particular deity having the strongest claim on a soul, possibly regardless of the deity the individual venerated is essentially consistent with MotP actually, which states, "when characters die, their souls drift toward the Outer Plane that matches their nature most closely." The ensuing discussion in MotP ties the soul's 'nature' very specifically to alignment. And we see in FR that each Outer Plane is governed by a deity or co-ruled by a set of deities.
Now, in the revision to the FR cosmology wrought by 3rd ed., it seems we no longer have souls 'drifting' through successive planes via a formless cloud of the Astral Plane. Rather, it appears they go directly to a Fugue Plane that is set apart from the other planes, from which a deity may call them. (Note: The basic fact that each D&D setting now receives its own distinct comsology, and FR specifically having the new 'World Tree' design, both seem to me to overwrite earlier 2e comsology.)
So while souls apparently do not 'drift' to the plane that most closely matched their nature, they may yet ultimately be drawn to that plane through a different set of mechanics. The deity who calls the soul from the Fugue Plane could certainly still be the deity who administers the plane that matches the soul's nature most closely, as MotP states.
One way to think about the 'nature' of a soul 'most closely matching' an Outer Plane is in terms of the entire sum of the individual. Not just the concrete behaviors would be measured, but also all the person's hopes, dreams, wishes, desires, goals, intentions (both conscious and unconscious), so that the behavior is merely the tip of an iceberg.
Thus, in addition to actions there is also a kind of spiritual 'trendline', if you will, that may be of even greater interest to the deities. At least according to MotP, souls in the afterlife do not appear to be static. There is nothing to suggest that they do not continue to grow and evolve in their immortal form in the Planes. And actually, we are told in FRCS that souls that opt to go with the baatezu to the Abyss and serve a foul master there can gain power. Why should this not be the case for all the Outer Planes as well?
Anyway, because souls can presumably continue to evolve in the afterlife, the general 'quality' of servants a deity may be getting for eternity may not be a trivial matter. A deity is probably not going to expend energy fussing over individual souls on a case by case basis. But the deity will appoint servants tasked with assuring that high quality souls (i.e., 'pure' and 'in harmony' with respect to whatever the faith is about) keep on lining up to enter the deity's plane(s).
In cases where a soul's 'nature' may fall on a margin between two different planes, I would like to think the deities (or their representatives designated to manage such a task), would work out who gets the soul. There may be a bit of dealmaking that goes on there, who knows.
We all know that deities are made more powerful as they attract more active worhsippers. But I would add another mechanical layer of explanation to that:
Each soul that is called by a deity becomes immortal, and the divine energy of that soul becomes added to the plane where he she resides. Although initially the soul goes to the Outer Plane that most closely matched their innermost nature (in its totality), the soul still continues to evolve in service to the deity. And in time, the soul may yet be sent to other planes administered by the deity to serve in new capacities (or conceivably even to an allied deity's plane, with one deity assisting a friendly deity is some way). If so, their divine energy is then added to the plane they're reassigned to. Redeployment of souls as such results in fluctuations to the overall 'wattage' of each plane over time; though presumably such fluctations are very minor.
The more consonant, or harmonious, a soul is with the essential energy of the plane, the more energy they add to that plane. Theoretically, the 'purest' of souls with respect to the nature of the plane, even when the character is a lowly commoner, might add more energy than much higher level character adventurer class who barely meets the criteria to serve in a plane.
In the grand scheme of the Torilian cosmos, the difference in energy between even an epic level character who is perfectly in tune with the nature of a plane, versus a peasant who was accepted to serve on the plane by the skin of his teeth, may appear insignificant. An individual mortal soul is a mere blip to begin with to the gods. However, averaged over millions and millions of lives, these slight differences can really add up. And it those wholesale differences can give a deity an edge in power over rival deities.
So there is, on the one hand, metaphysical energy that derives from mortal worshippers focusing their hearts, minds, spirits, and actions upon a deity while they are alive on Toril. That is most definitely a key basis to a deity's power. However, by the same token, in many ways the immortal souls that are added to the deities' planes in the afterlife prove more valuable to the gods over time. Because in the afterlife souls are immortal, evolve there, and can continue to increase in power; which adds more energy to the plane where the immortal soul serves, and then ultimately to the deity.
It then strongly behooves the clergy of a faith to instruct followers in both behavior and thought that, upon a souls death, sets worshippers up to be called to a plane governed by the deity the priests serve. |
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KnightErrantJR
Great Reader
USA
5402 Posts |
Posted - 25 Feb 2007 : 15:59:53
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| For reference sake, an interesting sidebar that touches on this very topic can be found on page 50 of Power of Faerun. |
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Lemernis
Senior Scribe
378 Posts |
Posted - 26 Feb 2007 : 12:29:50
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I just had another thought about the question of gradual memory loss in the Fugue Plane. It could explain why many souls do not realize that they have died. It depends somewhat on how quickly the soul loses memory, and how long they remain in the Fugue Plane if no deity sends a servant to collect their soul...
Let's say the soul loses memory at an atrition rate of about 10% per day. By the end of the tenday wait period for a servant to come to collect the soul, the soul will have no memory of the former life on Toril at all--and then of course they will forget that they have died as well.
Whatever the rate of memory loss, those souls that no deity comes to collect will lose their memory after a time. One would think that a servant of Kelemvor would collect them in due course to take them to the City of Judgment, but at that point there is certainly no hurry! Perhaps they may mill about in the Fugue Plane for fairly lengthy periods of time before they are taken to be judged by Kelemvor. |
Edited by - Lemernis on 26 Feb 2007 12:30:53 |
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xaviera
Learned Scribe
Canada
149 Posts |
Posted - 07 Oct 2008 : 21:55:29
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Ah, necroposts... 
Stumbled across this topic whilst looking for something else - at least give me credit for searching 'afterlife' for subsequent threads 
One question that hasnt been addressed herein is the issue of what happens to married couples who die worshipping different gods. I guess it's fairly obvious from the discussion thus far that they'll go to the planes of their own deities. Now if they slowly forget their lives, there isn't much problem (apart perhaps from the immediate anguish of being separated from one's spouse, though of course that could be seen as a blessing...), but if they don't, they must then remain separated for all eternity. Do souls get conjugal visits once per millenium or something? |
Writings on Sharess: Thoughts & Prayers by Xaviera ~ High Priestess of Sharess |
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Nerfed2Hell
Senior Scribe
USA
387 Posts |
Posted - 07 Oct 2008 : 23:26:11
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| I would say no to conjugal visits. Once a soul moves on to its diety's home plane, its eternal existance is now primarily about serving its divine master and basking in the rewards for having done so in life. Even souls who could somehow recollect their former life should think of the separation as small potatoes compared to getting to know their god personally... and if it really, really mattered to someone that he or she spend eternity with his spouse, then that individual should do some soul searching and try earnestly changing his/her beliefs so that they end up in the same place. |
Some people are like a slinky... not good for much, but when you push them down the stairs, it makes you smile. |
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Darius Talynth
Acolyte
Canada
21 Posts |
Posted - 07 Oct 2008 : 23:41:36
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This a great thread and I have attempted to read through as much as I can. Sorry if I am repeating anyone else's comments.
There are two things that we have to first accept, because your average Faerunian already does:
1) The gods Exist.
2) There are many gods - people worship the "pantheon", or at least pay homage to it.
3) Not everyone would have a patron deity unless they were a specific lay worshipper of a certain deity. Even then they would still worship the pantheon in some form.
This means that an LG person cold worship, or pay homage to Tyr, Chauntea, and Auril all in the same day. He would pray for Tyr to help guide the judgement of a local magistrate, pray to chauntea for a bountiful harvest, and pay to Auril to not send an early frost and ruin that harvest. Good people will pay respects to evil deities because they want to appease an evil god like Talos, or Umberlee and others. Does this make the average joe Evil? Not at all. It is a fact of life in a polytheistic culture where the gods do exist. Pray for the blessings of the good gods and pray and make offerings to appease the evil ones.
As for people who don't follow a specific deity, I believe they go to kelemvor's realm (and myrkul's before that). An elf would go to Arvandor, and a dwarf to Moradin's hall or wherever else they should go based on the lives they lived.
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Polytheism and the soul's destination
