Interestingly, that adventure also has an LG ex-Cleric of an LG god who has done nothing wrong except for lose his faith, yet:
The ex-Cleric knows his lack of faith has damned him to an afterlife of torment.
Given his alignment and lack of evil acts, people's arguments here would indicate such a fellow would still get shipped off to Heaven. However, with his +11 Knowledge (Religion) he seems to "know" that he will be "damned" to "torment."
So does he think Erastil is going to get to torment him in some way? Or despite his good alignment and lack of evil deeds he will be shipped to Hell for torment, because there really is an implicit assumption of a modern Christian-esque afterlife? Or that even though he is not a dissident and had faith and passion in his life (it only being broken by horrible loss, not being a thing he lived a life without) he thinks he is going to be judged "failed" and forced into the Graveyard of Souls and that that is "torment" as opposed to "boredom" (which, frankly, is the eventual fate of most souls who don't get destroyed).
Regardless, he doesn't seem to think there is any possibility of going somewhere without torment, such as regular Heaven and just not to Erastil's Domain within it.
Dude suffered a crisis of faith. He probably took a -2 circumstance penalty due to that, and nat 1'd his check, for a total of 10 - a normal commoner with no ranks will, on average, get the same roll and come to incorrect conclusions.
(Note: this is not conflating an auto-fail; this is extrapolating basic rules presumptions. He can't make that check again until he gets a level or does research; and he's not going to increase as a cleric and probably avoids the sacred libraries, leaving him unlikely to shake that notion any time soon. I dunno, though, as I don't know the cleric in question.)
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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.
The key word in that statement is "Might". It depends on the nature of said failure. If the Iomedan fell to evil and still kept to Law, Hell would be an appropriate place for Pharasma to send it. On the other hand, maybe the person kept to good but really wasn't big on committing to rules so the "failed" Iomedan might spend eternity in Elysium.
If you're going to hang the Director on his words, make sure you take into account ALL of them.
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Dude may also have 0 ranks in knowledge (planes), meaning he knows he failed as a cleric of Erastil (and so isn't getting into Erastil's divine realm) but doesn't actually know how the afterlife works.)
Guilt's a thing, too. He may firmly believe that he deserves an afterlife of torment for whatever he did.
Lastly, nothing prevents an NPC from being straight-up wrong.
Edit: If you're read the various GM's eye view articles, then odds are good you know much, much more than a typical NPC or even a typical PC.
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Then again -- wouldn't going to the heavenly realm of a deity you have lost faith in be a form of torment even if you are still of the same alignment as said deity?
If you're going to hang the Director on his words, make sure you take into account ALL of them.
It is good to look at all of someone's words. Lets look at mine:
I'm literally responding to the Creative Director directly saying a failed Iomedaen might go to Hell.
More importantly, I was asking about the implications of this:
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?
Part of the question was which of these was a failure condition at all, and how they differed!
So the Iomedaen was a LE jerk and goes to Hell (I'm sure that was chosen randomly, and not because all this damnation stuff is a dualistic God/Satan dynamic).
However the Erastilian mentioned above also seems to think he is going to be "tormented" somehow for losing his faith, which may make him end up as the "brick in the road of heaven" mentioned by JJ, though I have not seen that sort of thing as a possibility in a book, it is not really what I'd classify as "torment" but is pretty crumby thing to do to a person, and being absorbed by the plane is the eventual fate of most petitioners anyway.
Further, it seems "failed" worshippers are indeed getting punished:
Or to endure any number of punishments in the afterlife.
He didn't mention "other stuff which is nice, despite 'failing'" as a possibility.
Which is the whole issue. Apparently you can be sent to Heaven and punished there by being made into a brick in a road, and a LG ex-Erastilian is worried about some sort of "torment." It isn't just about people being sent to different planes, it is about how "punishments" are happening, it is about the crossroads of alignment, failure, devotion, and punishment (also, apparently, consequentalism as part of judgment). There is a heck of a lot more to that then shuffling people along based on alignment.
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being absorbed by the plane is the eventual fate of most petitioners anyway.
Keep in mind that from an Eastern point of view where individuality isn't held to such an absurdly high standard, this is considered a GOOD thing.
That's essentially the fate of evolved Humanity in Childhood's End. And the Overlords were in clear envy of humanity for that aspect... again. A.C. Clarke wrote the book as a Westerner gone native in an Eastern culture.
Exactly. That is why I don't think it would really be classified as "torment." I mean, I guess you could be a brick and still be self aware which would rather suck, but I'm not sure what sort of lesson that would be teaching you other than Iomedae (and/or Pharasma) is allowed to do really jerky things to people who "fail" a heavenly deity but still end up in heaven somehow.
Although the Childhood's End reference is really interesting. To go on a bit of a tangent the children "get it" and are fine with joining the Overmind while the adults pretty much lose it and descend into suicide, "games" of war, and the like. Since most mortal inhabitants of the material plane probably lack the sort of mindset of those children one can understand the appeal of serial reincarnation, lichdom, and the like.
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Interestingly, that adventure also has an LG ex-Cleric of an LG god who has done nothing wrong except for lose his faith, yet:
The ex-Cleric knows his lack of faith has damned him to an afterlife of torment.Given his alignment and lack of evil acts, people's arguments here would indicate such a fellow would still get shipped off to Heaven. However, with his +11 Knowledge (Religion) he seems to "know" that he will be "damned" to "torment."
So does he think Erastil is going to get to torment him in some way? Or despite his good alignment and lack of evil deeds he will be shipped to Hell for torment, because there really is an implicit assumption of a modern Christian-esque afterlife? Or that even though he is not a dissident and had faith and passion in his life (it only being broken by horrible loss, not being a thing he lived a life without) he thinks he is going to be judged "failed" and forced into the Graveyard of Souls and that that is "torment" as opposed to "boredom" (which, frankly, is the eventual fate of most souls who don't get destroyed).
Regardless, he doesn't seem to think there is any possibility of going somewhere without torment, such as regular Heaven and just not to Erastil's Domain within it.
It doesn't really make sense for the gods and their churches to preach that you can get to a good aligned plane without worship of a god. Good deeds alone gets you a nice afterlife and the possibility of transformation to an outsider who can either go his own way or join up with an organization of its choice.
Good deeds and worship of a god gets you a nice afterlife, but the deity determines what happens to you after that. It's fine if you legitimately love that god, but if you don't you might not. Good gods can increase their worship count by not advertising the truth. And their human clergy might lie about it (or believe somethign wrong) even if their god doesn't approve.
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Interestingly, that adventure also has an LG ex-Cleric of an LG god who has done nothing wrong except for lose his faith, yet:
The ex-Cleric knows his lack of faith has damned him to an afterlife of torment.[...]
So does he think Erastil is going to get to torment him in some way? Or despite his good alignment and lack of evil deeds he will be shipped to Hell for torment, because there really is an implicit assumption of a modern Christian-esque afterlife? Or that even though he is not a dissident and had faith and passion in his life (it only being broken by horrible loss, not being a thing he lived a life without) he thinks he is going to be judged "failed" and forced into the Graveyard of Souls and that that is "torment" as opposed to "boredom" (which, frankly, is the eventual fate of most souls who don't get destroyed).
Or it could be that he would consider being so close to his former lord to be torment. It's basically a more benign form of the punishment of Tantalus... and Tantalus's punishment would torment anyone. You're always just close enough to see it, but too far away to get it. At least if he had gone to Hell, he could play the "out of sight, out of mind" card. Here... he's close. So close. But he can never reach it.
He has everything he could need, he has rewards for living a virtuous life... but the thing he wants most? That, he can never achieve.
Tell me that doesn't sound like torment.
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It doesn't really make sense for the gods and their churches to preach that you can get to a good aligned plane without worship of a god. Good deeds alone gets you a nice afterlife and the possibility of transformation to an outsider who can either go his own way or join up with an organization of its choice.
Good deeds and worship of a god gets you a nice afterlife, but the deity determines what happens to you after that. It's fine if you legitimately love that god, but if you don't you might not. Good gods can increase their worship count by not advertising the truth. And their human clergy might lie about it (or believe somethign wrong) even if their god doesn't approve.
Well, keep in mind that faithful worship of a god can trump your own alignment for determining where you go.
LN people that are sincere Erastil followers still go to Heaven, for example.
Basically, following a good god does make it easier to get into the Upper Planes. Following a lawful god makes it easier to get into the lawful planes. And so on.
(With exceptions for the gleeful weirdness of gods who live on mismatched planes, like Norgorbor and Milani in Axis, Nethys in the Maelstrom, Calistria and Gorum in Elysium, Dahak in Hell(!), etc. And some gods have realms completely outside the outer planes - Zon-Kuthon in the Shadow Plane, Desna in the Prime Material, Achaekek and Apsu have mobile demiplanes, etc.)
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Desna's plane is on the material plane?
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So as talked about in Hell's Rebels and Mummy's Mask, one gets their memories and 'self' scrubbed and becoems a petitioner after death, but isn't that a paradox where if you ae no longer 'you' (say a follower of Gorum) that you no longer qualify?
Steve Life=Follower of Gorum
Steve in Death=No longer a follower of Gorum because he is no longer Steve
Creative Director
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So as talked about in Hell's Rebels and Mummy's Mask, one gets their memories and 'self' scrubbed and becoems a petitioner after death, but isn't that a paradox where if you ae no longer 'you' (say a follower of Gorum) that you no longer qualify?
Steve Life=Follower of Gorum
Steve in Death=No longer a follower of Gorum because he is no longer Steve
Not a paradox. Think of it this way; what you do in life determines the qualities of your soul and that prepares it for its fate. SO....
Steve in life = follower of Gorum
Steve in death = Steve's soul, which due to his faith in Gorum, has been prepared to serve Gorum in the afterlife.
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Desna's plane is on the material plane?
Yes.
More specifically, she maintains two realms - one's located on the Prime Material, at the star of Cynosure.
The other is a flying castle in Elysium.
The Cynosure realm is her primary one, while the Elysium realm is almost like her vacation home.