With the publication of a bunch of new daemons in Bestiary 6 and the forthcoming hardcover of Book of the Damned, how many ways are there now to be killed and have your soul doomed to a lower plane despite your alignment and actions? Let us count the ways.
1. Sanguadaemon: Drain Soul ability. Condemns dead soul to Abbadon.
2. Cacodaemon: Soul Lock ability, followed by a fiend eating the soul gem. I assume the plane it goes to depends on the type of fiend that ate it.
3. Obcisidaemon(?): I think it's implied that the result of destroying/consuming a soul in the Cloak of Souls is that it also goes to Abbadon, since this is just a more powerful version of the above two soul conversion/consumption abilities.
4. Great Wyrm Infernal Dragon: Damnation flames ability, anyone killed by the breath weapon goes to hell.
5. Sign an infernal contract, go to hell on death.
6. Hellfire Ray spell: If you're killed by the damage, make a will save or go to hell.
7. Malediction spell: If you fail a save and die in the next minute from any effect, go to hell.
8. Outsider flavor text(?): There are references to quasits, cacodaemons, and imps taking their masters souls to their home plane on death, presumably this is supposed to be a guaranteed outcome of accepting one, even if your are neutral aligned on the moral axis. I think there are also some flavor references to succubi stealing souls of those they energy drain to death, but I'm not sure.
What else? If I were an adventurer who faced these sorts of threats I'd want to be aware of which things should scare the hell (heh) out of me.
which things should scare the hell (heh) out of me.
None. Petitioners aren't even aware of their previous life, and souls can't sensate. So death on Golarion is final anyway.
which things should scare the hell (heh) out of me.None. Petitioners aren't even aware of their previous life, and souls can't sensate. So death on Golarion is final anyway.
So you feel all good people should be out there selling their souls in return for resources they can use to do good, since they won't remember their lives when they arrive in hell anyway?
So you feel all good people should be out there selling their souls in return for resources they can use to do good, since they won't remember their lives when they arrive in hell anyway?
No, 'cause then they'd condemn someone (or something) to the Hells. Just not themselves as such.
No (formerly) living creature ends up in the Golarion afterlife. Their souls do (usually), but not they themselves.
Time to die.
|
which things should scare the hell (heh) out of me.None. Petitioners aren't even aware of their previous life, and souls can't sensate. So death on Golarion is final anyway.
While if you get remade into a Petitioner you don't usually remember that life you came from this isn't true for pretty much every other Outsider type. Most don't remember but there a lot that do.
They tend to go straight into a strong Outsider or keep their class levels or both. Very rarely you become a unique being that has a good chance at becoming a demigod.
which things should scare the hell (heh) out of me.None. Petitioners aren't even aware of their previous life, and souls can't sensate. So death on Golarion is final anyway.
Eh...petitioners vaguely remember their previous life. But they are not the same being as the were previously.
In some rare cases a deity might intercede at your mortal death and turn you into a higher ranking outsider with your memories and personality in tact.
Something seems strange and disturbingly familiar about this wispy, ghostly humanoid shape
Petitioners are the souls of mortals brought to the Outer Planes after death in order to experience their ultimate punishment, reward, or fate. A petitioner retains fragments of its memories from life, and its appearance depends not only upon the shape it held in life but also upon the nature of the Outer Plane to which it has come.
Creatures who die, become petitioners, and then return to life retain no memories of the time they spent as petitioners in the afterlife. A petitioner who dies is gone forever—its “life force” has either returned to the Positive Energy Plane or, in some cases, provided the energy to trigger the creation of another outsider. Petitioners who please a deity or another powerful outsider can be granted rewards—the most common such reward manifests as a transformation into a different outsider, such as an archon, azata, demon, or devil, depending upon the petitioner’s alignment. In rare cases, a creature can retain its personality from life all the way through its existence as a petitioner and into its third “life” as an outsider, although such events are rare indeed.
I don't see why it's relevant whether you remember your life in the afterlife. Having amnesia does not make you cease to be the same person, and knowing you're going to have amnesia at the time should not make you relax about being eternally tortured.
I don't see why it's relevant whether you remember your life in the afterlife. Having amnesia does not make you cease to be the same person, and knowing you're going to have amnesia at the time should not make you relax about being eternally tortured.
It's just the implication of a becoming an petitioner.
Most lose the majority of their memories and have their personality change to some degree, though a LG person would make a LG petitioner and probably still retain many traits from previous life but perhaps lacking mannerism and such of their formerly living self.
I don't see why it's relevant whether you remember your life in the afterlife. Having amnesia does not make you cease to be the same person, and knowing you're going to have amnesia at the time should not make you relax about being eternally tortured.It's just the implication of a becoming an petitioner.
Most lose the majority of their memories and have their personality change to some degree, though a LG person would make a LG petitioner and probably still retain many traits from previous life but perhaps lacking mannerism and such of their formerly living self.
Okay. So I know that when I die I'll have amnesia and even some personality change. I'll still be me, that being the definition of the soul. So I (now) should care that I (then) will be tortured.
Whether or not it's you depends a lot on how you look at what defines "you".
But this really shouldn't become a philosophical debate.
I think VRMH's view and description is at least somewhat valid, at least from an in character view. Their could definitely be people who hold the view that the petitioner that comes from them is not them and would therefore not be concerned about the fate of that being.
I would personally consider it to be a rather evil outlook on things, but I could see people holding such a view.