Fate of souls after death

[Fedorarogue]

So with the exception of clerics and other classes based on worship of a specific god what happens to the soul of a person when they die? What prompted this is I have a devil NPC in my game as well as a Mystic Theuge who worships Asmodeus. The player of the Mystic Theuge wants to know if his converting people to do evil gets them closer to going to the Hells upon death.

[Liam Warner]

Fedorarogue wrote:

So with the exception of clerics and other classes based on worship of a specific god what happens to the soul of a person when they die? What prompted this is I have a devil NPC in my game as well as a Mystic Theuge who worships Asmodeus. The player of the Mystic Theuge wants to know if his converting people to do evil gets them closer to going to the Hells upon death.

Whatever you want to happen.

Personally in my games the process on death is as follows . . .

You go to a big waiting room in the sky, if your not resurected the god of death sends you on to the appropriate afterlife for your faith. You don't need to be a Cleric of Senjwoi to go to the happy hunting grounds just a devout worshiper, or admitedly an evil SLOB who's going there as one of the deer the devout ones hunt.

If you don't worship any gods (atheist, agnostic) your sent back for another turn on the mortal wheel as your soul continues to evolve.

Specifically for your question . . .

The mystic Theurge will be sent to Asmodeus's realm to receive whatever fate awaits him there. Now as for his converts if they are actual "Converts" since they worship Asmodeus they'll go to his realm on death to receive their reward/punishment. If they don't convert but are just doing evil they'll get the afterlife of their faith e.g. Asmodeus realm anyway, the happy hunting grounds as a rabbit, reincarnated as worm etc etc.

Those who were truly impressive fighters (not in the sense of the fighter class but just those who never gave up e.g. the widow who lost her husband and oldest son to war, had her home stolen and still did everything she could to support her other children) are given the choice of the trial land if they died before their time (natural causes you don't get the option).

The trial lands is a mirror of the mortal world where they must travel the great peak at its center and drink from the water of life and death. If they are worthy they return to life, if they aren't they are sent on to their afterlife. The challenges offer different routes to the water e.g you can grow in skill of arms, magic, face intellectual challenges etc. Normally one is returned to life as you were when you died, some however for reasons uknown are returned to the material world with the potential to become gods, or demons.

[Fedorarogue]

This is all interesting material. Though it begs the question "where do all the thousands of souls who poor into the Hells come from?" they all can't be just worshipers of the Infernal lords because that just seems invalidate those devils who are coercing people to do evil acts. Not full conversions but doing evil seems like it should in some way effect you. Since any alignment could worship any god. If say your god was Lawful good and you were insidiously evil. He most likely doesn't want you even if you were a worshiper.

That is just my take on it though I was hoping to hear more opinions to corroborate or refute my thoughts on the whole thing.

[Drejk]

This seems to be a setting-specific question. I guess you are asking what happens with souls in Golarion?

From Pathfinder wiki:

"Upon death, souls migrate to Pharasma's Boneyard in the Outer Sphere, which sits atop an impossibly tall spire that pierces the Astral Plane. Pharasma makes no decision on whether a death is just or not; she views all with a cold and uncaring attitude, and decides on which of the Outer Planes a soul will spend eternity."

Soul lands in the queue awaiting for judgement. After indetermined time it is judged by Pharasma and sent to fate based upon actions, alignement, deity and other factors. Before it is judged it might get resurrected, stolen by daemons or other soul hunters, get lost, raised as undead, etc. After judgement, not so much.

[Set]

Fedorarogue wrote:

Since any alignment could worship any god. If say your god was Lawful good and you were insidiously evil. He most likely doesn't want you even if you were a worshiper.

What's funky about that is that many gods dwell on alignment-specific planes, and yet, don't necessarily require even their clerics to have the exact same alignment as they do.

Nethys and Gozreh and Pharasma's clergy can be Chaotic Neutral, Lawful Neutral, Neutral Good, Neutral Evil or Neutral, which means that their followers in the Boneyard / wherever can be good, evil, chaotic and lawful, all jumbled together.

Clergy of Iomedae could be LN or NG, and still end up in the Seven Heavens, while non-evil or non-chaotic clerics of Lamashtu are hanging out in the strongly-chaos-and-evil-aligned Abyss.

*Many* Asmodeans in Cheliax seem to be lawful but not evil, and yet they are headed for a strongly-evil afterlife, while many Sarenraens, including clergy, in Qadira seem to be a bit 'good-adjacent,' and yet may end up in her strongly-good-aligned realm, despite having been not-so-good in life.

It's kind of a funky side-effect of good gods and evil gods having neutral clerics, that the heavens and hells could have sizable populations of non-good and non-evil petitioners.

[Barong]

You know, when the soul goes to their plane after being judged by Pharasma, do they still remember their mortal lives? I remember in past editions of d&d they forget everything(although certain materials of the Forgotten Realms seem to contradict this).

[Liam Warner]

@Barong
I don't know, in my games it depends on the afterlife e.g. Elysian fields you forgot your old life, happy hunting grounds you rememebr it.

@Fedorarogue
That's where the interrelatedness of things comes in. Worshiper of Asmodeus who succeeds goes to hell for his reward, Worhsiper of Asmodeus who fails goes to hell for his punishment, worshiper of Eioewa who is judged as evil after their death gets sent to Asmodeus for his punishment because that's what the religous texts say happens. Of course you've also got the fact your possibly dealing with multiple prime material planes, arcane sacrifices that sends a soul to hell etc etc.