| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
Or, you decide to screw the system and find some way to be immortal. Then focus on spending the next few thousand years crushing inevitables, fanatics, adventurers, and psychopomps who try to force you back into the system. Unmake them before they unmake you.
Sure most of the methods for gaining immortality are "Evil" but if you don't want to be a part of the system Evil was the game plan from the get-go. The gods of these settings are basically greek gods, largely a bunch of petty jerks, so you might as well stick it too them as much as possible.
I think it all comes down to bad writing. The devs presumably WANT at least the good aligned gods to be sympathetic. Howeve, you're right that the way its written they all come across as uncaring jerks who just see mortals as their playthings.
They care, they’re just smarter than you and know what’s good for you even if you don’t.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I think it all comes down to bad writing. The devs presumably WANT at least the good aligned gods to be sympathetic. Howeve, you're right that the way its written they all come across as uncaring jerks who just see mortals as their playthings.Or, you decide to screw the system and find some way to be immortal. Then focus on spending the next few thousand years crushing inevitables, fanatics, adventurers, and psychopomps who try to force you back into the system. Unmake them before they unmake you.
Sure most of the methods for gaining immortality are "Evil" but if you don't want to be a part of the system Evil was the game plan from the get-go. The gods of these settings are basically greek gods, largely a bunch of petty jerks, so you might as well stick it too them as much as possible.
I see that less as a failing of the gods and more just a consequence of how crapsack the fundamental mechanism of the multiverse really is. The so-called gods are caught up in it just like everyone else, they just have the misfortune of being closer to the top. There's no one to legitimately blame (save perhaps Pharasma), so they take the heat themselves for a system they had nothing to do with engineering and cannot now mitigate.
So your choices as a mortal in this universe are basically threefold. One, find a way to get out of the cycle, either by overcoming death or by getting out of the multiverse (though ideally, what would be the most altruistic is to find a way to evacuate the entire population of the multiverse, not just you). Two, pray for Great Rovagug to break free and end the current crapsack multiverse (this doesn't do a thing for you or anyone else around, but maybe a multiverse with a more conscionable afterlife will arise from the ashes; and even if one doesn't, at least this one ends). Three, go about living your life like normal, not for the sake of any of the afterlives (even the so-called good ones) that will ultimately treat the entirety of your life experiences and memories as little more than a tally mark on a scorecard, but because the Akashic Record actually does keep track of you. Also an unthinking part of the existing machinary of the multiverse, yet it still gives more of a damn about your life than even the "good" afterlives.
It really does seem like a pretty common thing in RPGs though. Like someone said upthread, devs are just incapable of imagining a world where the afterlife doesn't suck. It's not like it's even an adventure-enabling part of the universe, either. It's somehow even more depressing than having no afterlife at all.
Don’t worry, be mildly satisfied.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
It really does seem like a pretty common thing in RPGs though. Like someone said upthread, devs are just incapable of imagining a world where the afterlife doesn't suck. It's not like it's even an adventure-enabling part of the universe, either. It's somehow even more depressing than having no afterlife at all.
I think it's a consequence of having the afterlife be a known, measurable phenomenon. IRL, what happens after death is not a thing that can ever be proven, and even accounts from old religions or people that come back from being clinically dead (that is, not permanently dead and therefore, plausibly having never actually seen the REAL afterlife) can be believed in or not, but never known. And therefore, can be believed to be any amount of amazing and wonderful.
Personally, I think the best way to handle it would be to have it understood that there is a fundamental distinction between the visitable, knowable afterlife and the permanent, unknowable afterlife. Call it purgatory, call it a holding pattern, call it that really awesome city of the dead in Coco before the Final Death, but some things just shouldn't be measurable with a tricorder.
| 4 people marked this as a favorite. |
Remember, power =/= moral authority.
Remember, power =/= moral authority.
Exactly.
It really does seem like a pretty common thing in RPGs though. Like someone said upthread, devs are just incapable of imagining a world where the afterlife doesn't suck. It's not like it's even an adventure-enabling part of the universe, either. It's somehow even more depressing than having no afterlife at all.I think it's a consequence of having the afterlife be a known, measurable phenomenon. IRL, what happens after death is not a thing that can ever be proven, and even accounts from old religions or people that come back from being clinically dead (that is, not permanently dead and therefore, plausibly having never actually seen the REAL afterlife) can be believed in or not, but never known. And therefore, can be believed to be any amount of amazing and wonderful.
Personally, I think the best way to handle it would be to have it understood that there is a fundamental distinction between the visitable, knowable afterlife and the permanent, unknowable afterlife. Call it purgatory, call it a holding pattern, call it that really awesome city of the dead in Coco before the Final Death, but some things just shouldn't be measurable with a tricorder.
There actually WAS something kind of like this in 4e DND: upon death, everyone initially went to the Shadowfell (essentially the same as the Plane Of Shadows), after a brief time, a few were chosen by the god they followed to become an exalted and spend the afterlife in their realm, however, most of the dead just disappeared after a short time, with no one (not even the gods) knowing what happened to them after. Some people (in universe) thought reincarnation, some thought they just ceased to exist, and others thought they went to some realm beyond the known multiverse.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
Remember, power =/= moral authority.
I want to get this on a bumper sticker. No exaggeration.
I think it's a consequence of having the afterlife be a known, measurable phenomenon.
I mean, one issue with having the existence and nature of the afterlife be accessible information to living people is that if it's just entirely a positive thing with no downsides, what would be the point of keeping on with their pre-afterlife once their destination is assured?
I think it's a consequence of having the afterlife be a known, measurable phenomenon.I mean, one issue with having the existence and nature of the afterlife be accessible information to living people is that if it's just entirely a positive thing with no downsides, what would be the point of keeping on with their pre-afterlife once their destination is assured?
This is a good reason for demons to encourage fratricide among their followers, cuts down on late life redemptions.
Memories are only a part of the person not the whole. Emotions and feeling are equally important. It is quite possible to still feel the emotion about something without remembering the details. This could very well be what happens after death. A good person could retain all the positive feelings and forget the negative, where an evil person would be the exact opposite.
Taking it a step further what if you not only experienced your own feeling, but also those of the people you interacted with in life. A good person would experience all the gratitude and love of those he helped or cared about. An evil person would feel all the suffering and misery that he caused.
It does say something about erasing their personality also, which doesn't even make sense as why would they be the same alignment as before? I would think if they were turned into a "blank slate" like that they would be true neutral. Anyway there's always Rule Zero: If you're the DM and don't like it, just change it. I personally like they idea that petitioners/outsiders have vague memories of their mortal life and regain more the more powerful they get. There actually IS some support for this in canon: Trelmarixian, the Horseman Of Famine, has almost completely memory of his mortal life, including how he destroyed his entire planet how he became the Horseman in the first place).
It does say something about erasing their personality also, which doesn't even make sense as why would they be the same alignment as before? I would think if they were turned into a "blank slate" like that they would be true neutral.
Petitioners are souls that have been infused/combined with quintessence from their aligned planes. That's where their alignment comes from even if their personalities were partially intact.
Heck, even a fully intact personality/memory (via soul anchor or otherwise) won't be the same person after this process. A daemon with his full memories of his mortal life still wants to eat souls, even though he (presumably!) didn't when he was a mortal. A protean is going to be all weird and scatterbrained, etc.
It would be conceivably traumatic for an LN person who ends up in hell because they were an Asmodean in life to retain their memories of a life spent walking the neutral path as they turn into an LE devil anyway.
Like the one step thing in PF1 is going to really mess some people up. Nobody Neutral who worships the Reaper of Reputation for political gain really wants to end up in Abbadon do they?
It would be conceivably traumatic for an LN person who ends up in hell because they were an Asmodean in life to retain their memories of a life spent walking the neutral path as they turn into an LE devil anyway.
Like the one step thing in PF1 is going to really mess some people up. Nobody Neutral who worships the Reaper of Reputation for political gain really wants to end up in Abbadon do they?
Norgorber's realm is underneath Axis (the Abadar ruled Aktun section).
Below the streets of Aktun sprawls a twisting labyrinth of catacombs and sewer tunnels that connect to the hidden subterranean city of Duskfathom. This haunting metropolis is the divine realm of Norgorber, and is to Axis what any black market or undercity is to a surface city on a Material Plane world. Portals within Duskfathom connect directly to upper layers of Hell, Abaddon, and the Abyss, serving as a convenient back door for many denizens of the evil- aligned planes to do hidden work within Axis. Duskfathom’s buildings claw up from cavernous depths, where luminous factory runoff breeds degenerate mutants and other magical abominations, while more pristine structures hang like geometric stalagmites from vaulted ceilings.
As for one steppers, there's a reference in Heaven Unleashed(?) to a holding area for LN and NG worshippers of LG gods who sit in timeout and learn how to be more properly LG before they can mingle with the general populace.
So do people go to their deity's realm before they go to where their alignment suggests, or is it a case by case thing?
I can't imagine Elysium wants a lot of Gorumites running around and the CE ones being made into CG stuff is going to be a little weird.
Do devout Desnans end up in space, since her divine realm is a demiplane on the prime material IIRC?
So do people go to their deity's realm before they go to where their alignment suggests, or is it a case by case thing?
I can't imagine Elysium wants a lot of Gorumites running around and the CE ones being made into CG stuff is going to be a little weird.
Do devout Desnans end up in space, since her divine realm is a demiplane on the prime material IIRC?
The best part is that violence is omniversal! No matter where we go and what happens, we can just start swinging. Bathe in blood, breathe in iron!
{. . .}
Heck, even a fully intact personality/memory (via soul anchor or otherwise) won't be the same person after this process. A daemon with his full memories of his mortal life still wants to eat souls, even though he (presumably!) didn't when he was a mortal. A protean is going to be all weird and scatterbrained, etc.
The kind of person who would become a Daemon probably wouldn't have had too much objection to eating souls, even in mortal life, assuming that said person could find a way to benefit from it.
The kind of person who would become a Protean would probably have been rather weird and scatterbrained in mortal life as well. Deadpool comes to mind as a poster-child example.