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I was just reading the latest book on the evil religions when I stumbled on a question I couldn't figure out. If a cleric, or anyone for that manner, worships a deity that is one step away, say LN following a LE, where do their souls go when they die? I was always under the impression that they were distributed by alignment, but the worship thing complicates the matter. To make it worse, why would a deity empower someone they couldn't own in the afterlife? So as far as I can figure, they either are separated by alignment and the deity is using them to further their influence on the material plane, or petitioners can be sent to any location in the outer planes.
I prefer the first version. Did I miss any other options or views?
LE deities, like Asmodeus, spend a significant amount of energy figuring out ways to claim souls. Night Hags do similar stuff but will outright steal souls if they can. Now if some devil has gotten a soul pact signed with a nitwit who isn't LE, that devil is going to try to lay claim to the soul in the afterlife.
In Golarian the afterlife goes through the Boneyard. Pharasma gets to judge souls, by judge she determines where they go. If Cayden Cailean has a NG worshiper who dies and sits before Pharasma he's gonna claim that soul if he can. He probably has a minion that's primary function is to act as an ambassador to Pharasma's court.
This is the function of religion in Golarion. It's insurance that your soul doesn't get hijacked in the afterlife as soul poaching is a real threat. Deities want their followers with them even if the moral or ethical components of a worshiper's alignment are slightly different.
Now if your an atheist, you lack spiritual insurance. So it's primarily your life's work combined with your moral and ethical outlook that determines where you go. If you get jacked in transit though you'd better have wracked up some good karma, so that maybe some Empyreal Lord or powerful Outsider will fetch you back. I'd wager that the good guys occasionally hijack a particular soul on occasion as well.
I actually like the alignment system. I've played without it, which is fine but some players get erratic without a general guideline to follow. Also it dictates alot of the damage reduction which seems strange but is better than than the old +X system where I always forgot what was what.
Yeah my example above is setting specific but, Night Hags and Devils corrupting souls are pretty general stuff.
In one older game we suffered the horrible total party kill, our DM just kept going with us all standing in the Outlands near the base of the Spire, with each outer plane tugging at us in different directions.
