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Probably for a while at least, unless they happen to get dropped off in places that have portals from one to the other.
Once they become whatever outsider they're destined to become they're usually capable of traveling to other planes; however at that point it becomes a question of how much of their mortal lives they remember, and thus whether or not they know/care about their prior relationships. Some settings have them remember nothing, others only vague thoughts and images, and others allow them to remember everything or nearly everything.
Once you are dead it does not really matter. In Pathfinder you don't normally remember your mortal life and you may be absorbed into the plane, IIRC.
That's the pattern for Golarion, yes. Other settings may work differently.
While true, this forum is for the Golarion setting.
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♪ ANNNNNND IIIIIIIIIIIEEEEEEIIIIIIIIEEEIIIII ♫
♫ WILLLLLLLLL ALLLLWAYYYYSS LOVVVE YOUUUOOOUUUUOOUUUUU ♪
Once you are dead it does not really matter. In Pathfinder you don't normally remember your mortal life and you may be absorbed into the plane, IIRC.
Wes' awesome article in part 6 of Mummy's Mask goes into some more detail about this, but this is pretty much correct.
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Petitioners can wind up on the same plane if they worship the same God even if of different Alignments. so Alignment isn't the only deciding factor involved.
So I'd say it depends on the particular Gods involved. Shelyn is certainly gonna want to keep couples together and orchestrate something to enable that, and Asmodeus might easily put some effort into keeping a married couple together depending on their contractual arrangement, and so on and so forth.
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Aditionally, petitioners couldn't leave their plane back in 3rd edition. That is no longer the case in Pathfinder, so yeah, they could leave their plane. Finally, although the planes are described as infinite, you can in fact walk from Elysium to Heaven.
And petitioners can retain memories, it just doesn't happen that often.
A petitioner who loves his wife so much that he retains his love for her and walks all the way from Heaven to Elysium just to be with her, now that's a romantic story.
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I'll add that Heaven's entry in The Great Beyond states that Heaven tries to keep families together. IIRC, you could actually find families going back many, many generations.
Between the The Great Beyondand Wes's article, I'm under the impression that very few types of petitioners - maybe only the Abyss's? - immediately lose their mortal memories.
More frequently, as millennia pass, the memories of mortal life simply fade into the background. Especially if there's nothing around to reinforce it.
Further, actually transitioning from petitioner to exemplar (angel, devil, protean, psychopomp, etc.) wipes the slate clean - the soul sheds its mortal baggage.
With the occasional spectacular exception. Like Nightripper.
That's a lot more hopeful than the setting I run. hehe
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I'll add that Heaven's entry in The Great Beyond states that Heaven tries to keep families together. IIRC, you could actually find families going back many, many generations.
Between the The Great Beyondand Wes's article, I'm under the impression that very few types of petitioners - maybe only the Abyss's? - immediately lose their mortal memories.
More frequently, as millennia pass, the memories of mortal life simply fade into the background. Especially if there's nothing around to reinforce it.
Further, actually transitioning from petitioner to exemplar (angel, devil, protean, psychopomp, etc.) wipes the slate clean - the soul sheds its mortal baggage.
With the occasional spectacular exception. Like Nightripper.
Fwiw, many daemons tend to have scattered, disjointed recollections of their mortality. The knowledge that yes, they were once mortals, causes no small amount of self-loathing, rage, and delusional justification on their part.
Trelmarixian the Horseman of Famine is a special case in that he retains a perfect memory of his entire mortal existence, with the singular exception of the moments just prior to his death by self-inflicted starvation.
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...I thought it was 'Till death do us part'?
While true, this forum is for the Golarion setting.
It wasn't originally, it was in off-topic and got moved here <_<
...I thought it was 'Till death do us part'?
Depends on the vows, but for the most part, that's a pretty reasonable one.
Also, Erastil would be all about keeping married folk (and entire families!) together, should they so desire. That's why his region is one without major crusading groups, all pastoral-like and peaceful.
The main difference is that one of those planes would absolutely insist that they be together, but leverage full advantage against the other.
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It's fascinating. While I certainly see the reason many think it cruel... I'm actually starting to wonder. I suspect it's a deeply mortal perception to suppose that we (as we are now) are the best expression of what we can be. But if not... there could be an ascendant revelation that's actually quite advanced in other religious practices and ideas: the elimination of self. The sublime freedom from our own failures. I have to think more about this, but it's been kicking around in my mind today.
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How's this then. Petitioners do lose their memories, but not all of them. If you end down in the lower planes, you'll have to say goodbye to all those good memories, like puppies, icecream and that tall blonde you dated in highschool. If you end up in the higher planes, you lose all the pain and sorrow of your past life.
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Out of all the things about Golarion's life and death cycle (and a few other settings) this might be the one thing I most absolutely loath from them. It just stinks on so many levels. It doesn't seem to be any kind of reward for a good life lived at all. It's more like the forces of the multiverse are using mortals as sort of playthings or as tools to fuel their own agendas. In a lot of ways it can be downright cruel.
In any game I run I change it so that at most non-evil petitioner that lose their memories do so as a temporary coping mechanism for dying and to ease the process of going to the afterlife, and even then they retain some important memories of their past lives, and they will always be able to know they have and recognize their past loved ones and friend on an instinctual level if nothing else.
I also have all the good outsiders and planes are under a agreed on pact that allows any non-evil petitioner to live in their realms with other friends and loved ones from that plane as long as they are reasonable well behaved, and they get more leeway than other outsiders. That way nobody is kicked out and forever barred from being with their loved one in the afterlife because one was NG while the other was LG or similar situation.
Any good petitioner is also never forced to become another outsider or be absorbed into their plane or be used in another way for fuel the ethos they represent, unless they choose to do so. They are allowed to retain their identities. They also retain a form that closely resembles what they had in life, so they aren't turned into birds or anything like that.
Of course none of this applies to evil petitioners. That is part of the price of living a life of evil, as things like demons and devils are supposed to be cruel and use others as tools on the most profound levels.
Man you REALLY wouldn't like my setting then :) Souls not only lose their memories, but they lose them in order of newest to oldest in real time, until they have spent an entire life time waiting in judgement. Then they are reincarnated.
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Whereas my setting is the exact opposite, I usually run most ex-mortal outsiders (as opposed to outsiders who spontaneously formed from their plane of origin) as remembering all or nearly all of their prior lives. The exception is outsiders that are formed not from a single soul but from a conglomeration (such as certain kinds of Demons), in which case they'll have scattered, partial memories of their prior lives; this is of course an intentional madness implanted by the innate malevolence of the Abyss itself.
The mystery in my setting is that mortals don't know much of anything about the afterlife, the realms of the gods, or the process of existence after death, and those ex-mortal outsiders are banned from speaking on the subject to mortals by an ancient accord between the five overdeities of the setting. So if you can find a name and manage to summon a (insert outsider of choice here) who was once a mortal creature dwelling in (insert ancient location here), you can get them to tell you anything they feel like telling you about the place, time, and events through which they lived as a mortal, but try to pry into their current whereabouts and you'll get little more than "I dwell in the realm of (insert deity they serve here), nothing more may I share with mortal ears." The evil ones may be prone to lying about it, but even their deceits are required to be vague and unspecific.
This is why I think things on the outer planes and in Chronicle of the Righteous is messed up. With these products, everything is common knowledge, there aught to be a bit more mystery to the Great Beyond. I could see knowing a little on each of the afterlife planes, but not to the point where we get maps.
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Just because we know, doesn't mean the general populace knows.
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Real world religions that post you will be with your married SO in the afterlife are distinctly in the minority, so it never occurred to think this was an unusual feature of Golarion.
Out of all the things about Golarion's life and death cycle (and a few other settings) this might be the one thing I most absolutely loath from them. It just stinks on so many levels. It doesn't seem to be any kind of reward for a good life lived at all. It's more like the forces of the multiverse are using mortals as sort of playthings or as tools to fuel their own agendas.
See, I tend to think the forces of the multiverse do regard mortals as playthings and tools. Good deities are the equivalent of cage-free farmers.
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I see it less like play things and more of the general nature of being a soul. See, when you transcend your body, your soul moves on to greater things (hopefully). In that detachment from your wordly life into the divine life, it naturally sheds off memories. You're moving on to a better life and in a way, your soul is being purified of all things worldy back into the soul energy it was derived from.
Alternatively, it's a lot like how your childhood is really fuzzy except for some key moments (first kiss, first fight). Your previous life ends up being much more fuzzy, with some key exceptions.
the info in books like Chronicles of the Righteous and similar books is really there for GMs. Most of the population doesn't know that many details, and some "common" knowledge repeated by people may not be true.
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This is why I think things on the outer planes and in Chronicle of the Righteous is messed up. With these products, everything is common knowledge, there aught to be a bit more mystery to the Great Beyond. I could see knowing a little on each of the afterlife planes, but not to the point where we get maps.Maps are important. A savvy person would visit each afterlife location before investing in a retirement condo there. - You might think being LG is cool, but then visit Heaven and find its pretty dull and boring place. That way you can choose a different god/alignment before you drop dead
Worship Lymnieris, problem solved. :3
Real world religions that post you will be with your married SO in the afterlife are distinctly in the minority, so it never occurred to think this was an unusual feature of Golarion.
And I suspect that the religions where you stay married in the afterlife assume that you are going to the same place. Having one partner in heaven and the other in hell is certainly grounds to end a marriage if the marriage did not already end at the first partner's death.
I think the reason why 'absorbed into the plane' is so unsettling is that it is a lot like The Wall of the Faithless in Forgotten Realms. That horror show had non worshippers chucked into a wall that sucked you in while you were still aware. All in all you are just a brick in the wall.
It's worth noting, Biblically speaking, at one point when the Sadducees tested Jesus, they asked him a riddle.
"Yo, Teach!~ A man had seven sons
~ The first, he married a wife
~ ~ He had no sons, and then he dies
~ ~ So off to bro-number-two she flies~ The second bro married the woman
~ The one that was bro-one's wife
~ ~ He had no sons, and then he dies
~ ~ So off to bro-number-three she flies~ The third bro married the woman
~ The one that was bro-one-and-two's wife
~ ~ He had no sons, and then he dies
~ ~ So off to bro-number-four she flies... and so on through all seven brothers, all of whom die with no children. And then she dies, too.
So, like, which one is she married to in the resurrection, man?"
And Jesus was all like,
"Nah, dawgs, you be trippin'. Ain't no marraige in no heaven! It be all, like, Angels and stuff!"
And the crowd was all, like,
"Holy crap!"
... 'cause they ain't never heard nothin' like it.
/weird accent
So basically, there isn't a reason to follow that marriage holds true in the Judeo-Christian suite of religions, from what I can tell. Doesn't stop those of us who are married from often feeling like there will be, though. :)
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For Judeo-Christian that verse is specifically speaking of the Resurrection at the end of days, not the immediate life after death. Even so the implication of like angels is made more explicit in the Luke version of that verse. Everyone is equal as children of God come the Resurrection and as a result the woman with seven husbands doesn't have to reserve her love for any one of her earthly spouses. Without any physical aspect to love or earthly death to get in the way everyone can love one another without caring about social constructs.
As for my game I usually have most memories wiped from petitioners, but emotions from relationships to other souls are nearly completely intact. Interacting with objects of these emotions, sometimes even just talking about them, can help them remember important points in their mutual history. Similar to the story in the Odyssey where the ghosts can't think about their lives until prompted by Odysseus.
True, however the analogy is as close as it gets for PF relationships. It is the eternity.