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The people of Rahadoum are not atheists. They believe in the existence of the gods, they just refuse to have anything to do with them. The graveyard you're thinking of is where sincere Rahadoumi end up.. a place where gods leave them alone forever.
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I have been reading Beyond the Vault of Souls and I noticed that it says an atheist Soul will crystallize and become part of the Vault of Souls. now I was reading one of the Pathfinder tales and it described how The Souls of atheists go into a great graveyard in the Boneyard . are these both true?
Beyond the Vault of Souls is outdated as far as how that works. The most up-to-date rules for what happens to all souls (be they atheist or not) appears in the final volume of Mummy's Mask, which has a big article about this subject.
For atheists, it's the souls who "fail" in life who end up being crystalized or otherwise remain in the Boneyard, but those who "succeed" go on to an outer plane suited to their alignment or become free-willed spirits that drift out to explore or reincarnate or whatever. It's not a simple always-the-same situation.
The main difference between an atheist soul and the soul of someone who worshiped a god is that the latter usually ends up going to serve that god in the god's realm.
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I have been reading Beyond the Vault of Souls and I noticed that it says an atheist Soul will crystallize and become part of the Vault of Souls. now I was reading one of the Pathfinder tales and it described how The Souls of atheists go into a great graveyard in the Boneyard . are these both true?Beyond the Vault of Souls is outdated as far as how that works. The most up-to-date rules for what happens to all souls (be they atheist or not) appears in the final volume of Mummy's Mask, which has a big article about this subject.
For atheists, it's the souls who "fail" in life who end up being crystalized or otherwise remain in the Boneyard, but those who "succeed" go on to an outer plane suited to their alignment or become free-willed spirits that drift out to explore or reincarnate or whatever. It's not a simple always-the-same situation.
The main difference between an atheist soul and the soul of someone who worshiped a god is that the latter usually ends up going to serve that god in the god's realm.
The planar graveyard that the preivous poster and I believe were referring to is the one visited by the protagonist in "Death's Heretic".
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I have been reading Beyond the Vault of Souls and I noticed that it says an atheist Soul will crystallize and become part of the Vault of Souls. now I was reading one of the Pathfinder tales and it described how The Souls of atheists go into a great graveyard in the Boneyard . are these both true?Beyond the Vault of Souls is outdated as far as how that works. The most up-to-date rules for what happens to all souls (be they atheist or not) appears in the final volume of Mummy's Mask, which has a big article about this subject.
For atheists, it's the souls who "fail" in life who end up being crystalized or otherwise remain in the Boneyard, but those who "succeed" go on to an outer plane suited to their alignment or become free-willed spirits that drift out to explore or reincarnate or whatever. It's not a simple always-the-same situation.
The main difference between an atheist soul and the soul of someone who worshiped a god is that the latter usually ends up going to serve that god in the god's realm.
So a lawful good atheist (for example) could potentially turn into an archon, just not one aligned with any particular god? I'd be curious to know more specifics on how that works and how that archon performs their afterlife since I was under the impression that the aligned planes were generally divided between one god or another.
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So a lawful good atheist (for example) could potentially turn into an archon, just not one aligned with any particular god? I'd be curious to know more specifics on how that works and how that archon performs their afterlife since I was under the impression that the aligned planes were generally divided between one god or another.
I don't know how Canon Death's Heretic is, but it appears that the Lawful afterlife has creatures not dedicated to any god, but just to order itself.
Presumably your lawful good atheist could be sent by Pharasma to this part of the afterlife, provided their version of atheism allowed for it. Rhadadom's refuse to participate in anything God-related and so are given their particular destination. I thought it was a particularly interesting idea that Pharasma doesn't send anyone to a destination not in alignment with their belief system unless there's some kind of unholy contract involved.
What I really want to know is where the pan-religionists go.
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Doesn't Inner Sea Gods also state that Pharasma will feed the souls of atheists to Groetus to keep him from crashing into the Boneyard?
Nope. Old info. ^_^
All ISG says is that their relationship is a mystery, and that Groetus draws closer and farther based on unknown conjunctions.
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Nah, Salim's right - apparently a lot of Rahadoumi reject Pharasma's judgment, and so become quarantined in the Graveyard of Souls.
Atheists that don't reject the afterlife after finding out it's real simply go on their appropriate plane. And yes, for neutral ones that means the Boneyard. But the Boneyard has realms of rest and reflection, for those whom the Boneyard is the final home.
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I don't know how Canon Death's Heretic is
ALL THE CANON. :D
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Just to clarify and add to what Jacobs was saying—the atheists/dystheists/god-rejectors have something of a choice when they die. Some of them, the true hard-liners, reject not only the gods but the idea of judgment entirely (what right does Pharasma have to stick them somewhere?) and instead hang out in that giant graveyard for eternity. Think of it like a political protest—a postmortem sit-in on the spire.
That said, most folks who were anti-gods in life would probably spend eternity someplace nice and in accordance with their values (i.e. their alignment), and so go ahead and accept judgment and move on to the appropriate plane. That doesn't mean they suddenly have to serve a god—there are plenty of folks on the planes who aren't sworn servants of a particular deity.
Note as well that the above is talking about folks who *reject* the gods. Agnostics and other folks with not-so-clearly-defined religious preferences just go to the plane that suits them—you don't always have to choose a specific god to go to a particular plane (though if they're rulers of that plane, you may still have to obey their rules in general terms).
Hope that helps!
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Nah, Salim's right
I'ma tell him you said that.
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Just to clarify and add to what Jacobs was saying—the atheists/dystheists/god-rejectors have something of a choice when they die. Some of them, the true hard-liners, reject not only the gods but the idea of judgment entirely (what right does Pharasma have to stick them somewhere?) and instead hang out in that giant graveyard for eternity. Think of it like a political protest—a postmortem sit-in on the spire.
That said, most folks who were anti-gods in life would probably spend eternity someplace nice and in accordance with their values (i.e. their alignment), and so go ahead and accept judgment and move on to the appropriate plane. That doesn't mean they suddenly have to serve a god—there are plenty of folks on the planes who aren't sworn servants of a particular deity.
Note as well that the above is talking about folks who *reject* the gods. Agnostics and other folks with not-so-clearly-defined religious preferences just go to the plane that suits them—you don't always have to choose a specific god to go to a particular plane (though if they're rulers of that plane, you may still have to obey their rules in general terms).
Hope that helps!
And no motherf+#*ing wall you stuff them all in to suffer for all eternity 'just because'.
*grumble* *grumble
ALL THE CANON. :DI don't know how Canon Death's Heretic is
The Redemption Engine falsely pretended that outsiders (no special exemptions for archon or angel subtypes) don't have to breathe. Can we please get a rewrite of that underwater scene in the library and a replacement copy?
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So what about polytheists who worship more than one god? I'd assume there are a lot of people who say basic prayers or whatever to several gods that are popular in their area, without being particularly loyal to any one above the rest.
In my case, I have a Pathfinder Society PC who is an ex-slave archer bard. He thanks Erastil for his archery skill, Nethys for his magical ability, Shelyn for his performing ability, and Cayden Cailean for his freedom. He doesn't get any mechanical benefit from any of them, so I don't have to pick just one name to put in the "deity" field on his character sheet. And yes, he's the one and only alignment that works for all 4 of those gods of different alignments (NG).
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Doesn't Inner Sea Gods also state that Pharasma will feed the souls of atheists to Groetus to keep him from crashing into the Boneyard?Nope. Old info. ^_^
All ISG says is that their relationship is a mystery, and that Groetus draws closer and farther based on unknown conjunctions.
Well, there is a bit on it in the Groetus section of Inner Sea Faiths...
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So what about polytheists who worship more than one god? I'd assume there are a lot of people who say basic prayers or whatever to several gods that are popular in their area, without being particularly loyal to any one above the rest.
In my case, I have a Pathfinder Society PC who is an ex-slave archer bard. He thanks Erastil for his archery skill, Nethys for his magical ability, Shelyn for his performing ability, and Cayden Cailean for his freedom. He doesn't get any mechanical benefit from any of them, so I don't have to pick just one name to put in the "deity" field on his character sheet. And yes, he's the one and only alignment that works for all 4 of those gods of different alignments (NG).
I was under the impression that in PFS you could only worship one god (that is receive mechanical benefits from, such as qualifying for feats) but that you could venerate as many gods as were appropriate for your character.
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Well, there is a bit on it in the Groetus section of Inner Sea Faiths...Doesn't Inner Sea Gods also state that Pharasma will feed the souls of atheists to Groetus to keep him from crashing into the Boneyard?Nope. Old info. ^_^
All ISG says is that their relationship is a mystery, and that Groetus draws closer and farther based on unknown conjunctions.
I haven't read my copy yet - I'll get back to you once I have. Perhaps the old is new again. ^_^
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Well, there is a bit on it in the Groetus section of Inner Sea Faiths...Doesn't Inner Sea Gods also state that Pharasma will feed the souls of atheists to Groetus to keep him from crashing into the Boneyard?Nope. Old info. ^_^
All ISG says is that their relationship is a mystery, and that Groetus draws closer and farther based on unknown conjunctions.
I haven't read my copy yet - I'll get back to you once I have. Perhaps the old is new again. ^_^
** spoiler omitted **
Sorry, I wasn't assuming that you had access , I just read it today and was sharing. :)
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Well, there is a bit on it in the Groetus section of Inner Sea Faiths...
Having now read Inner Sea Faiths (an excellent book, for the record), I noticed that the text in question is copied directly from the article in Shattered Star. While its presence is undeniable, it may have slipped through the cracks of editing. I'd be interested to learn whether this was an error - I may inquire with Mr. Jacobs at some point.
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The Redemption Engine falsely pretended that outsiders (no special exemptions for archon or angel subtypes) don't have to breathe. Can we please get a rewrite of that underwater scene in the library and a replacement copy?
Answer:
You'll notice that in that scene Roshad/Bors/Salim *also* don't have to breathe. That's because anyone in the gondola is affected by the same water-breathing magic—or at least, anyone who doesn't detect as evil.
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Well, there is a bit on it in the Groetus section of Inner Sea Faiths...Having now read Inner Sea Faiths (an excellent book, for the record), I noticed that the text in question is copied directly from the article in Shattered Star. While its presence is undeniable, it may have slipped through the cracks of editing. I'd be interested to learn whether this was an error - I may inquire with Mr. Jacobs at some point.
It's not an error; that part is correct.
What isn't correct is the original back-in-the-day hyperbolic bit that said that this was the fate of ALL atheists. That is not the case and was never the intention, but it crept into print early anyway. It's the fate of the failed atheists, in the same way a failed Iomedan soul might go to hell to be tormented, etc.
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in the same way a failed Iomedan soul might go to hell to be tormented, etc.
Whoa, back up for a moment there. This sort of thing is all well and good when you have dualism, but in polytheism based on an alignment grid damning folks to Hell for "failing" at worshiping a LG god has a lot of implications I don't think have been worked through.
If a worshiper of Asmodeus gives a little too generously to orphanages do they get "punished" by being sent to the afterlife without all the torture? Does a Urgathoan baker who "failed" (by Urgathoa's standards or some generic standard, I'm not sure how "failed" works when we are talking about worshipers of gods but the only definition is lacking "faith OR passion") get punished by being sent off to Nirvana and maybe baking cakes for Shelyn instead?
More importantly, what about the Neutrals? Do Gorum's followers get punished by being sent to live in the tidy, well run city of Axis? What about Nethys or Gozreh, they are dead center. What happens to their failed souls? Is it different if you failed because you got too far into a corner of the axis grid as opposed to keeping your alignment but rejecting magic/nature as opposed to just not caring enough about anything? Which of those would actually be a "fail" condition, anyway?
And while we are at it, why the heck can't I sell my soul to a psychopomp or Abadar or someone? Why is Evil the only team that gets to bypass judgment? Why doesn't "baptism" of some sort work in the opposite fashion?
I know it is a lot of questions, but as far as I know this hasn't really been touched on in anything and directly stating it opens a box of worms. While many books are obviously, though not explicitly, based on vaguely Christian notions of sin and virtue, damnation and redemption, and so on, they kind of just ignore it and everyone else does too. However when you directly state something like this the whole issue of 9 alignments governed by numerous powers with different definitions of positive acts and negative acts, and reward and punishment, I don't think you can just handwave it.
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I think it's in how your thinking of failed as a "one time oopsie and now your f&!%ed" kinda deal, when everytime I've seen it referenced the soul in question had lived constantly and consistently contradictory to the tenets of the deity or faith they claim to follow.
Not only did I mention that "failed" is poorly defined, but that literally doesn't change anything. We could define "failed" as "ate too many parsnips in life" and all of the questions I listed about where they end up remain.
Seriously, how does redefining failure change the question "where do failed worshipers of non-LG souls go?"
I'm literally responding to the Creative Director directly saying a failed Iomedaen might go to Hell. I'm well aware anyone can make up anything they want, I'm talking about the implications of his statement on the setting.
Given that the entire thread is about how things work in the setting, I'm really not sure "a GM can make something up" is in any way relevant.
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The CD said "might", in regards to a failed Iomedaen going to Hell.
I said its up to the storyteller/GM, not that they can make up whatever they want (granted thy can, given their position :3). Basically the failed soul would be sent, via Pharasma's judgement, to a place that works as a punishment to them.
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I think the only way that a Failed Iomedaean would go to Hell (barring some of the sinister machinations that Asmodeans pull in Cheliax) would be if he "failed" so badly that he was actually of lawful evil alignment and thus was rejected by Iomedae.
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"Might" indeed means that it's possible for a failed Iomedan to go to hell. It's also possible for her to go to the Abyss. Or to become a brick in a road in heaven. Or to endure any number of punishments in the afterlife. What happens to someone who "failed" in life is DELIBERATELY left undefined so that the writers and creators of stories set in Golarion, be they Paizo employees or our freelancers or any GM can do whatever they want.
That goes for any soul.
We don't give exact rules for how a soul is judged. That's up to Pharasma, AKA up to the creator of the story.
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I think the only way that a Failed Iomedaean would go to Hell (barring some of the sinister machinations that Asmodeans pull in Cheliax) would be if he "failed" so badly that he was actually of lawful evil alignment and thus was rejected by Iomedae.
Correct.
Of course, if this Iomedan then became a crusader for Asmodeus and "succeeded" at being a devout Asmodean, he might instead of going to hell for punishment, be put on a fast track to becoming a devil.
It varies wildly, and two IDENTICAL people who do IDENTICAL things in life might end up with wildly different fates due to butterfly-effect type results of their actions, and their fate, and the unknowable whims of destiny.
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We don't give exact rules for how a soul is judged. That's up to Pharasma, AKA up to the creator of the story.
This might be, above a lot of things, the most useful bit for GMs and how to deal with gods in terms of existential questions the setting raises: they're basically compartmentalized avatars of what the GM decides on how the world works for a particular facet of the world.
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My understanding of failure is normally "you got your deity so wrong you're not actually compatible, and can't go to the divine realm."
Which then means you're going off to wherever Pharasma deems you to actually belong.
Keep in mind that a deity's divine realm can pull in people who would not normally go to a plane (like LN and NG followers of Iomedae going to Heaven).
It gets even goofier when the god in question lives on a plane that's a different alignment from the god.
So, for example, Droskar is a NE god, with primarily LE followers (the duergar), who lives in the Abyss, a CE plane.
A true follower of Droskar gets "rewarded" with going to Droskar's Abyssal realm to further his work.
A failed follower would normally go to an alignment appropriate plane. So a failed LE follower of Droskar goes to Hell like normal LE people.
Another extreme example would be Norgorbor, a NE god whose realm is in Axis. So his true followers get to go to Axis, and his failed followers usually land in Abaddon.
A failed follower of a good-aligned deity implies the follower grossly violated their god's tenets in some way.
So a failed Iomedean might've been a LN member of that Burners sect that scours Mendev to murder innocent tieflings just for being tieflings. The Burner might have enough good deeds/cognitive dissonance to ping as LN while still alive, but upon death may be utterly rejected by Iomedae and judged as LE. And so, off to Hell the Burner goes.
(I don't remember if the Burners are canon anymore.)
And yeah, a failed non-evil follower of an evil deity could wind up in a neutral or possibly even upper plane, though they'd have to be pretty damn weird. (Like a chaotic neutral Kostchtchien that that worshipped the psychopath as a god of strength and advocated women's rights or something. You have to be extremely off-message to fail so hard as follower of an evil god that you belong on an upper plane.)
A more likely scenario for a failed evil god follower is to still wind up in the god's plane, but not the realm. So a professed Lamashtuan who was big on forced sterilization might still go to the Abyss, but wouldn't be accepted into the realm of the Mother of Monsters. And so on.
(Heh. I took so long writing this that Mr. Jacobs has already responded, but I don't think anything I wrote contradicts what he said.)
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Or to become a brick in a road in heaven.
So, that would be the actual answer. If you hit the still undefined "fail" condition while paying lip service to a god (because having real faith is, by definition, not a failure) they get to do crumby stuff to you on their plane, or you get sent elsewhere for punishment. So is Asmodeus sending any rejects who were too nice up to be rugs in Heaven like Iomedaens end up in Hell, or is this strictly a downward slope as it is generally portrayed?
It varies wildly, and two IDENTICAL people who do IDENTICAL things in life might end up with wildly different fates due to butterfly-effect type results of their actions
Wow, okay, this is an entire new issue. Two people give money to two homeless fellows. One uses the money to take classes and become a social worker, the other one used it for a robbin' knife. That result is apparently reflected on the givers, impacting their afterlives to a degree, despite being identical acts. Is it worse on the one giver if the thief stabbed someone? But wait, the person they stabbed was incidentally one of those secret evil cultists that run around settings, and they accidentally saved the world! How does that flap of the butterfly's wings impact the giver's afterlife? Lets not start on if the first giver's new social worker runs someone over they wouldn't have if they'd died in a ditch years before were it not for the money.
Having "butterfly-effect type results" impact someone's judgment is ludicrous. It means at least some portion of their judgment is going to be essentially random, possibly pushing them towards one fate or another for results they did not and could not have known. More and more, I think those protestors in the Boneyard have the only reasonable idea.
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The Redemption Engine falsely pretended that outsiders (no special exemptions for archon or angel subtypes) don't have to breathe. Can we please get a rewrite of that underwater scene in the library and a replacement copy?
Answer:
** spoiler omitted **
Upon further review, Salim failed his Knowledge (Planes) check, and I misremembered that as something treated as objectively true.
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Actually I would imagine that failed worshippers of Asmodeus (assuming they were also evil), would still go to hell, they would just get extra round of torture. Those who really really did well in the eyes of Asmodeus probably get quick promotion out to some sort of devil, skipping the normal petitioner slow promotion route.
The issue with that is the "downward slope" I mentioned. If failed Iomedaens go to hell and failed Asmodeans go to hell, hell ends up with a lot of extra souls. Just like how one can sell one's soul to Asmodeus but not to Iomedae.
That could be a setting. Hell/The Abyss end up with way more souls, but infighting keeps them weak compared to the good aligned planes. Or perhaps the universe is overwhelmingly filled with good folks, so bad folks + sales =< good folks. That could work as well.
The issue is addressing it. "Punishment," as far as I can find, is pretty much only used to send people to Hell to get tortured for being jerks or for worshiping Asmodeus. I can't recall anything about anyone being punished by shipping them off to nice planes like Heaven or Axis. It is just one of the many parts of the generically Christian sin/virtue, redemption/damnation stuff that slips in unexamined.
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The punishment aspect may bethe wrong angle to look at it. Rather, Pharasma sorts you to go where you belong. If you've been living a lie your whole life, Pharasma will still send you where you belong in your afterlife.
If where you belong turns out to be pretty awful - well, Pharasma may have understood something about you that you never did. (Also, it's important to remember that Pharasma lacks both compassion and malice. She simply analyzes and acts.)
Its worth keeping in mind that the judgment process actually solidifies the soul into an petitioner of the destination plane. A soul sent to Hell arrives in Hell as a LE petitioner unless something weird happens.
Again, a failed follower of an evil god needs to be weird to get punted to an upper plane.
I could see it happen - like a LN worshiper of Zon-zon that's dedicated towards the memory of Dou-Bral. Or a chaotic neutral follower of Nocticula whose never killed someone.
People who've lived inexplicably virtuous lives while espousing to be followers of evil would wind up in neutral or good aligned planes.
But if you're evil and just following your god wrong, you'd wind up in an evil plane because that's still where you belong. (Again, unless Pharasma sees something really damn weird about you.)
Same if you were still good but fundamentally misunderstood your god. Like a follower of Desna who advocated people settling down and curbing their wanderlust. (Heh. Any example of a good-aligned worshiper doing it wrong and still being good are going to be pretty damn benign. An Erastil example might be a follower that advocates everyone moving to the big city for wealth, security, etc.)
(As to populations - the universe is full of awful people/critters and I imagine there are simply more evil souls than good. (For example, think of how many goblins there are compared to traditionally "good" races like elves and dwarves. Lamashtu's "favored" races tend to be very fecund and very psychotic.) Fortunately(?), the lower planes are full of evil people being evil to each other, and so most evil petitioners never survive to make the transition into exemplar. The daemons, who actively exterminate their petitioner population, are the most extreme example of this.
So the lower planes may have far more petitioners, but also have an extremely high attrition rate that keeps their numbers in check.
I do wonder if neutral souls actually have both sides outnumbered. Neutral souls are probably more numerous than good and don't destroy their own like evil souls do.
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What happens to someone who "failed" in life is DELIBERATELY left undefined so that the writers and creators of stories set in Golarion, be they Paizo employees or our freelancers or any GM can do whatever they want.
That goes for any soul.
We don't give exact rules for how a soul is judged. That's up to Pharasma, AKA up to the creator of the story.
Except you folks did define a "failed soul" and what happens to them:
The latter group-failed souls-might be considered spiritually stillborn. Whatever potential these souls carried onto the Material Plane was never stirred. They lived without convictions, passed through life without direction, and carried nothing with them in their passage. With no faith or passion to direct them to other planes, and no will to further the Boneyard's endless work, these souls are the flotsam of the River of Souls.
It goes on to explain that regardless of whether they didn't have the chance or fundamentally didn't care, they get shipped off to the Graveyard of Souls.
The problem is that you've suddenly added the concept of a "failed Iomedaen," which by definition would be impossible because that would mean they did have enough faith to qualify as that, but reached some other type of "failed soul" status that has never been mentioned before. It isn't that it is just undefined, it is that there was a definition and you've added another group without any explanation of what the heck that means. It isn't that apparently consequentalism is part of the judgment process now, or that there isn't an exact guideline of what happens to who and why, it is that a new type of failure has been added to existence without any hint of what it means "to fail," other than doing it might cause you to get judged differently.
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It won't be the first time that terms have overlapped. There's a LOT of text out there.
Call the "failed worshiper" the "false worshiper" if that helps.
(If I've followed Pathfinder stuff correctly, worshiping a god does give a god some jurisdiction over you - that's why gods send signs of approval and disapproval to their own followers, but leave each others followers alone. And that's also why there can be a reckoning for pledging yourself to a god and then violating said gods' tenants.)
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I could see it happen - like a LN worshiper of Zon-zon that's dedicated towards the memory of Dou-Bral. Or a chaotic neutral follower of Nocticula whose never killed someone.
Interestingly enough, they've actually got one of the former (sort of) in Shattered Star.
/tangent
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Yeah, that dude probably isn't destined for kytondom in Zon-Zon's Shadow Plane realm.