Is the Wall of the Faithless really such a big deal?

> Souls that are unclaimed by the servants of the gods are judged by Kelemvor, who decides the fate of each one. Some are charged with serving as guides for other lost souls, while others are transformed into squirming larvae and cast into the dust. The truly false and faithless are mortared into the Wall of the Faithless, the great barrier that bounds the City of the Dead, where their souls slowly dissolve and begin to become part of the stuff of the Wall itself.
At least 5e makes things *slightly* more fair.

There is a race of super beings in the universe. They all have great power, and can influence life in a myriad of ways, some for the better or worse. All you truly mean to these beings is to act a personal battery pack for one of them.

You must pick one you like, and devote your entire lifetime to worshiping this divine asshole, so that said asshole will be slightly better at his dick measuring competitions with other divine assholes.

If you choose not to enslave yourself in service to said divine asshole, whom won't even know you exist unless you are one of his powerful clergy, then they all agree to send you to a terrible fate where you are turned into a brick and must stay there, alert and aware, but unable to act, for all eternity. Even the Gods of justice and righteousness are okay with this.

Gods are a fucking protection racket.

>or otherwise they would lose their precious power
And therefore would be unable to dispense and protect justice, mercy and goodness
>and other gods, including good ones, threw a shitfit and made him restore it
He hadn't been a god for long when that came up. With the memory of the time of troubles so fresh, it would be foolish to blame them for not wanting him to do what was considered his job. As of 5e, you only end up in the wall if you are "truly false and faithless", which is a statement that is pretty open to interpretation, it could just be where all would be committers of deicide end up.

>And therefore would be unable to dispense and protect justice, mercy and goodness
If they truly were avatars of justice, mercy and goodness, they wouldn't lose any worshippers should the wall fall. Some good god you are, if you NEED to blackmail people into worshipping you.

>Wall of the Faithless
I hate it just cause MotB set up like the last third of it being about if you should or should not destroy it, and then at the very end it was like "lol j/k, you can't do that."

Guys. What if there is no Wall at all? What if it's a (((god))) trick to worship and serve them? It's not like they can't spread lies, manipulate people and mess with memories.

To be fair, atheism where gods exist and are active isn't the denial of their existence, it's the claim that mortals don't need them at all. Of course those divine fucks would be pissed at this. Especially the gods of good that actually do give a shit about mortals.

>Is the Wall of the Faithless really such a big deal?

After reading about The Wall of The Faithless:

If I was going to do something like this I'd turn it into more of a "man behind the curtain" kind of scenario where in the wall of the faithless taking of atheists is a lie perpetuated by all the gods partially out of convenience as this user stated: But for another, more heinous, and personally terrifying reason.

When in actuality The Wall of The Faithless wasn't made or crafted by the gods themselves, can't even be destroyed by the gods themselves, and is in fact the gestating body of some massive, primordial, ancient being whom originally conceived all life and is simply taking back the souls it originally split from it's own flesh during the big bang.

Then you basically just have all these Gods who're making up shit saying if you don't believe in x, y, and z you'll end up in the "Wall of the Faithless", but really they're just trying to siphon as many souls as possible from this horrifying thing growing in their backyard before it wakes up and basically takes back everything it ever gave in comeuppance for everyone abusing their power and devolving into good and evil- unlike it's neutral vision of existence.

It really should be renamed the "wall of babies".

Though it would explain why paladins Fall when they inadvertantly kill a baby in weird Fall Traps.

"YOU PUT ANOTHER BRICK IN THE WALL YOU FOOL!" *thunderclap* *powers diminish*

> Reminder that gods of justice, mercy and goodness

The god of mercy isn't okay with it, which is why Kaelyen is one of his clerics. He shares her opposition to the wall.

It's a retarded concept, it really forces you to question the description of any """good""" god.

>Then you basically just have all these Gods who're making up shit saying if you don't believe in x, y, and z you'll end up in the "Wall of the Faithless", but really they're just trying to siphon as many souls as possible from this horrifying thing growing in their backyard before it wakes up and basically takes back everything it ever gave in comeuppance for everyone abusing their power and devolving into good and evil- unlike it's neutral vision of existence.

The flip side of it being a wall of babies or an eldritch soul eating monster is that you end up with a few core rules all religions would enforce:

Child murder is always wrong.
Not doing whatever is neccesary to keep children alive is wrong
Not doing whatever is neccesary to indoctrinate children as soon as possible and consign their souls to the Gods and not The Wall is wrong.
Excommunication is a mortal sin, for both excommunicator and excommunicatee.
It is less sinful to kill a believer than a non-believer.
It is less sinful to kill a believer than excommunicate one.
If a person believes in *A* faith, trying to convert them and risking accidentally placing them outside either religion is wrong.

You'd also likely see that last one tested a few times, specifically if there's a few religions that are a bit crap at retaining or evangelising - the other gods and their religions would likely ally together to wipe out all those worshippers of inefficiently evangelical religions - leading to a global pantheon made up of the most evangelical religions and gods who are all in an uneasy alliance against The Wall.

With that said I wouldn't be surprised if there were a few people here and there or otherwise cults sprouting up that believed the wall of flesh and the baby eating fate to be what is "naturally supposed to happen" and then just go from there:

-Some people buy into the whole, "we're being saved from the cruel reality of oblivion by the grace of every and any deity who will take us in."

-Some people though -especially given that fantasy settings are terrible at keeping secrets- might actually WANT to willingly become a part of the wall of flesh/athiests so as to make it more powerful so it can consume the gods, the universe, everything in retribution for fucking everything up.

I dunno.
It's a neat idea anyway.

Kill all gods. Every last one.

So if someone from Forgotten Realms used magic to travel to Sigil would they be safe from the Wall? It clearly doesn't affect people from there seeing how casually anti-theistic a lot of them are.

That was hugely disappointing. I was looking forward to tearing it down - i think the qt aasimar party member was particularly enthusiastic about it?

This user gets it. Mortals don't need the gods at all. The gods need the mortals for energy (through prayer).

However, there is a way to avoid the Wall. Don't die ;).

Yes, basically this.

It's like if someone tells you "Dude, stop smoking or YOU'LL GET CANCER". Then you keep smoking, and you get cancer.

Actually, as a tribal dude, wouldn't you have your own afterlife? Like, you'd meet with your ancestor-spirits or something. Gan was a Spirit Shaman, and he clearly wasn't worried about what would happen after he died.

It's more like a rapist telling you to suck his cock or he'll cut your throat.

We need a subclass archetype that tries to escape from the gods influence!

No-one EVER intended to tear it down. Even Akachi didn't give a fuck, he just wanted his woman back. The Crusade was basically a sham.

Oh, the poor saps he gathered believed HIM, but Akachi was lying. He knew more than anyone that it couldn't be torn down.

This, then, must be the answer of the mortal races to their slavers: death. Death by fire, death by sword, death by spell. Torture for a million million years on each one cowardly enough to try parlay or surrender. Tear them down, pave them over, butcher their quisling faithful and their supernatural secret police alike.

The world belongs to the mortals. The gods are parasites.

Not being aware of Gods doesn't put you beyond their influence. You don't always get your preferred after life, some souls are in demand by multiple gods, some of which the party in question may not even have known or cared about.

Reminder that Lolth want's Drizzt's soul just as much as Mielikki

So, how can a mortal escape the influence of the gods?

>Kratos.jpg
KILL
THEM
ALL

Sell your soul to a demon, of course.

What a practical suggestion. They aren't only all powerful but there are hundreds of them too.

>fuckme.jpg

Let's not replace one pimp with another, ok?

Both Demons and Devils are able to mess with souls, and you can climb the ranks of either with ambition, effort, and time, although being powerful before death is definitely a boon.

I would imagine Celestials, perhaps high level Elementals and other high-level planar entities could, but the ones that care are typically called Gods anyway, even if they go unworshipped on the Material plane, like Primus or the Slaad gods.

Kratos gets by on hate, you can too.

>They aren't only all powerful but there are hundreds of them too.
They AREN'T all powerful, Lolth gets her ass handed to her by Demogorgon who doesn't bother with the whole worship thing. He's just a pimp ass demon.

I would prefer to see the mortals be free from their own actions rather than "be important enough" to be noticed by a "higher power". The latter is religion repackaged.

No, it's not a big deal.

Getting stuck in the Wall is not something that happens to just anybody:

>Almost all beings in Faerun worship many gods; as a rule, only zealots and clergy venerate just one deity.
>The average Faerunian lives long enough to worship (or serve through one's actions) one deity above all others - though in many acses, which deity a given person has served most might not be clear to a dying mortal or anyone else. If a mortal dies before finishing a mission or a task for a particular deity and it's a matter he felt strongly about in life, he could be sent back by that deity, reborn as another mortal, to try to complete that tasks. Otherwise, he ends up in the afterlife serving the deity most appropriate to his moral and ethical outlook.
>Only those who repudiate the gods (or who as a result of their actions are renounced by the gods), despoil altars and frustrate the clerical aims of any deity, or never pray or engage in any form of deliberate worship will qualify as either Faithless or False.

We aren't talking about not really knowing about gods because you live in a remote tribe. You can go through life without ever sending a single offering, penny, or word their way, and if you still act noble and good and righteous and fight against evil, Torm or Tyr or Ilmater will TAKE YOU ANYWAY, because you're serving through action even if you don't realise it.

If you're in the Wall, congratulations, you've tipped your fedora harder than anybody in the history of tipping fedoras has ever tipped a fedora. You're running around blowing up altars and smashing their altars and temples entirely out of spite, for no other reason. Or you're claiming that you worship Kelemvor (who hates undead), while on the side raising an undead army to conquer the world. And what's funny about that is that a crazy person blowing up altars might get taken by Cyric anyway.

Getting stuck in the Wall is goddamn hard.

>Some good god you are, if you NEED to blackmail people into worshipping you.

People are useless shitters, user. If everyone stopped being a tool and didn't worship Big Evil, then there'd be no fucking crime. We didn't invent locks because of all of the people out there who respect private property.

It's not Tyr's fault you use free will to rape babies.

Dead children are protected by the patron deity of their parents.

The people in Sigil are already dead, they're petitioners, or outsiders that were never alive in the first place.

Literally no god can make rightful claim of you if you go to the wall, which is nearly impossible because the gods cover literally everything. The only method is like user said, you have to intentionally fuck up HARD, and piss of literal gods, and the right ones at that.

Vecna became a god, and so did many others. A god isn't something to be worshipped, it's just a CEO position - you suck up to them when you're on the lower rungs, and you stab them in the back once you are strong enough.

Devils roam the Fugue Plain, and by contract with Kelemvor are permitted to offer souls deals to escape potential judgement by going to Baator and becoming Blood War fodder.

Demons just raid the shit out of Kelemvor's city to steal souls from the line of waiting souls, and his deceased followers/outsider servants and so on fight them off.

A good example of what you'd need to get Faithless or False is The Nameless One in PST. TNO can't be a cleric because literally no god wants to take him.

It's pretty bad, yeah.

I like the concept. It IS unfair.

It would be great to have a concept where a bunch of high level mortals tear the system down, and fuck divinity, let mortals rule their world.

>never pray or engage in any form of deliberate worship will qualify as either Faithless
>because you're serving through action even if you don't realise it.

Deliberate worship, user. Furthering the goals of a god without realising it isn't deliberate worship of that god.

Outside of Toril's immediate solar system you should be fine. Though Toril has Planar realms associated with it where that wouldn't apply.

Basically so long as Ao has no influence there you'll be good.

Petitioners don't really go to Sigil. They're bound to a Plane or Divine Realm and Sigil is neither of those.

Except it also points out that somebody might not even realise that you're worshipping them until literally they are already dead and the god is coming to claim them (if they want to go with them). If you stand for truth, justice, righteousness, the law, and all the things Tyr stands for, just because you don't call it Tyr, you're still serving.

Drizzt actually would fit this pretty well. He technically counts as worshipping Mielikki because she is the goddess whose ideals he feels most closely match his own. He doesn't pray to her, actively worship her, or get spells from her (even though as a ranger he could). He simply has a set of ideals and beliefs that match what he thinks of as Mielikki, and follows them. He followed them long before he ever had a name to call it (when Montolio first started teaching him about non-Lolth gods).

And she loves him for it.

So that does bring up a concept, if you could travel to the dnd mutliverse, would you all avoid FR and go somewhere like greyhawk instead just so you dont get WALLED?

I don't think it does point that out.

>though in many acses, which deity a given person has served most might not be clear to a dying mortal or anyone else.

That's talking about what happens when mortals are worshipping multiple gods, rather than not deliberately worshipping any.

No, but I'd avoid Toril for other reasons.

like? larloch maybe?

Not to be that one fucking asshole dangus who fucking quotes everyone, but there is a HUGE part of this that literally everyone in this conversation is forgetting.

THE WALL is an element of the Blood War. It punishes the souls of the dead yes, but it also keeps devils and demons out of the grey city. It also acts as a soft controller for the Blood War, because Devils are allowed to make deals with souls bound to the wall to free them, and Demons just fucking attack the wall and steal souls from it.

All of FR actually revolves around the blood war, this huge cluster fuck of a conflict that could rage out of control and end existence, but quixotically would also end existence if it stopped because it would mean the Lower Planes would stop fighting each other and turn their attentions elsewhere. The entire divine mechanism is set up to control the lower planes and prevent them from getting strong enough to break the deadlock.

I would just worship a god

Drizzt explicitly worships Mielikki and carries her holy symbol, it's mentioned in his very first novel, The Crystal Shard. Errtu figures out Drizzt's con of attempting to appear to be a Drow spy because he's wearing a Mielikki symbol, and Drizzt refuses to lie about his goddess, so they fight and he beats Errtu with his snowflake (literally) scimitar he stole from the White Dragon's hoard.

>take 1 level of cleric.
>Worship the concept of anything.
>What wall?

No, I just don't want to be on the same planet as Elminster. I'd just go take a vacation in Bytopia instead.

He worships her in the first novel yeah, but he didn't realise he was worshiping her in the prequel series, which came out later, until he started being taught by Montolio.

I'd worship a deity, I don't have any issue with it really. Probably Mystra. Pic related, dat priestess. Also because I get to the D&D multiverse, you bet your ass I'm going to learn as much as magic as I can from day one.

Shit, if I ever felt like coming home I could just go say hi to Elminster, he used to raid Greenwood's fridge for beer in-canon all the time.

I don't think Clerics are allowed to worship concepts in FR.

>Mystra
>not Lathander
Do you even Praise the Sun, heretic?

But could one get elminster to teach one magic? Can't you get his attention by saying his name a certain amount of times due to being a chosen

By the rules yes, a Chosen of Mystra can hear their name spoken as well as the next nine words following it.

By the novels, it doesn't work quite like that. They control the radius of how far they can hear, because if they tried listening to the entire planet all at once, can you imagine just how many instances of their name would show up? Since it also picks up aliases, nicknames, and similar, it'd be immensely annoying if somebody just started saying "Elminster hi" fifty times in a row.

Even Ao is not all powerful. Lady of Pain is probably the closest to all powerful being but only within her domain.

Even the four powers - Law, Chaos, Good and Evil - are not all powerful and are opposed by their counterparts.

isnt there a almighty being that is briefly mentioned in one of the FR books? like the boss of Ao?

Planar travelling concept clerics. On a holy crusade to eradicate all gods.

It's said in I think Die Vecna Die that Ao, the Lady of Pain, the Serpent, and Asmodeus are all part of a group of immeasurably ancient entities.

Ao goes all the way to the edge of "everything" to meet with his boss in one book, and refers to countless assignments "like his" that were born lived and died from there, and Ao's current project is Realmspace. He definitely has a superior, but within his crystal sphere he's for all intents and purposes omnipotent and omniscient (and omnipresent).

Krynn does as well, though he's only mentioned in a single phrase sworn by Takhisis as an oath, where she swears upon the High God (signifying that she cannot disobey, lest she invoke his wrath).

Not all crystal spheres seem to have overgods, although they might just be less VISIBLE overgods than other spheres. Ao is pretty visible, all things considered. The High God is almost invisible. If Athas has an overgod, they aren't visible at all. Pity the Athas overgod, imagine how they feel looking at what their creation has turned into.

That's just his boss. He may think he is all powerful but it is not the case since both Abyss and Baator still exist.

To support a claim of being all powerful you'll need to go to war against Abyss and win. I don't see gods lining up for this task.

>Lathander
>Not a tyrant just biding his time until he gets to try and take over the Pantheon again

who is the serpaent in this context?

>Pity the Athas overgod, imagine how they feel looking at what their creation has turned into.

That depends on his character. Maybe he is just a dick.

>be Athas overgod
>make lush world, full of magic and wonder
>cock of the walk, all the other overgods look at me and thumbsup, everybody wants to be my friend
>hmm, something's up here, water drying up?
>well, it's still beautiful, we're still good, magic still going on
>suddenly the sun goes red
>waitwhat
>those cute little halflings I made turn cannibal
>magic dying, destroying the world
>desolate lands
>everything going to shit
>the fuck is this Grey crap blocking me from the rest of the multiverse
>ohshit
>ohshitohshitohshitohshit
>...
>everybody points and laughs
>Ao suggesting I maybe call this one a day, start over
>even the fucking Krynn dick is laughing at me, how many fucking times has his world had to have its ass saved and cataclysms dropped on it?
>FML

The Overgod of Magic, who whispers its secrets to Vecna.

Allegedly.

>No-one EVER intended to tear it down.
Kaelyn did.

I never understood the dismay at her good ending.
She keeps up the fight.
Hers is an impossible mission and still she fights on.
She is the Batman of the afterlife.
There are worse things.

I interpreted it as her repeatedly freeing individual souls from the wall in little victories.
In my head, she and the protagonist go on fighting on the planes forever, or until the wall falls.

>knew no faith in life
>suddenly start finding faith when they get the wall and consequences for their actions

This seems ironic.

An another thing, I understand that a lot of people were disappointed by the fact that you couldn't destroy the Wall of the Faithless, but they explained it very well.
Once it was clear that the god in charge could whisk you away with a thought, the enterprise was basically forfeit.
At that point.

Whereas everyone else seemed to respond angrily to being told they couldn't do the impossible, I had this response:

>Apparently, it's impossible to destroy the Wall of the Faithless without displacing the God of Death, being powerful enough to resist the combined might of nearly all the gods, and implementing another solution to the Wall's place in the Blood War.
pic fucking related

After all, I had already eaten at least one deity at that point, depending on the run through.

She definitely needs to find Struggle and listen to him.

giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?456529-quot-Fall-down-seven-times-Stand-up-eight-quot-Mythos

The Wall of the Faithless is good because the gods say so.

If mortals must listen to gods, and gods must listen to overgods, who do overgods must listen to?

The gods of good who actually give a shit about mortals should be figuring out a way to get rid of the Wall and free everyone trapped in it.

Getting your throat cut means you'll be dead relatively soon. It's more like a rapist telling you to suck his cock or he'll lock you in his basement and torture you for the rest of your life. Oh, and not only do you have to suck his cock, you have to actually *like* doing it and keep telling him how great his dick is and how you're thankful he gave you a chance to suck it. If he thinks you're lying, he'll torture you for that, just as he would if you'd outright refused to suck his cock.

I remember a candlekeep poster telling me that Kelemvor decides how good your godless afterlife will be. I'm pretty sure that there are no atheists in the realms, given how ingrained gods are when they actually exist, and there are gods who'll take people even if they did not worship, so even if you did not visit the temple some sort of nature god may accept you if you were like a ranger or hunter or something, and babies and children get accepted pretty quickly. Unless you're completely evil, some god will probably accept you even if you did not actively worship.

>You can go through life without ever sending a single offering, penny, or word their way, and if you still act noble and good and righteous and fight against evil, Torm or Tyr or Ilmater will TAKE YOU ANYWAY, because you're serving through action even if you don't realise it.

>If you stand for truth, justice, righteousness, the law, and all the things Tyr stands for, just because you don't call it Tyr, you're still serving.

These are all well and good for player characters, but what about regular people who are decent enough or at least not actively malicious, but who also aren't heroic champions who go on grand quests for the cause of good?

Ao is true neutral, as is his superior. He won't favour a side like that. It's implied that he is Overgod of only Toril, and his boss is a sort of overserr of overgods.

Then Lythander or Ilmater will likely be into you as the two gods of 'Just be a decent person

The difference is that their new faith is directed toward someone who's actually worthy of it.

Considering that demons don't give a shit about you favouring any sides that a really big flaw in his judgement.

the DM

What, like your average farmer who tends his crops, hopes for a good harvest, stuff like that? Chauntea would like a word.

Or a minor spice merchant who never thinks of the gods, just of his purse, some good trading, fine silks and other trinkets for his house, and making a profit? Waukeen is right there.

FR has gods for practically everything.

You have also Chauntea or Lliira.

Shouldn't she become a demigoddess or even a goddess in time?

>What, like your average farmer who tends his crops, hopes for a good harvest, stuff like that? Chauntea would like a word.
Just because someone spent their life as a farmer doesn't mean they want to pledge themselves to the goddess of farming and go to an afterlife dedicated to astral agriculture. In all likelihood, they only farmed because they had to in order to survive. So do they get sent to the Wall for being False because their heart wasn't in it?

You spent your entire 40 or so years of life digging dirt and starving whenever your harvest didn't pan out? Oh boy I can't wait to tell you about your afterlife!

Most farmers might not. They might just toss a prayer her way when hoping for a good harvest, maybe even just a casual "hopefully Chauntea gives us a good harvest this year" thing. As long as it's done in good faith and hope, why wouldn't she be willing to take somebody? She's not an evil bitch after all.

>>Apparently, it's impossible to destroy the Wall of the Faithless without displacing the God of Death, being powerful enough to resist the combined might of nearly all the gods, and implementing another solution to the Wall's place in the Blood War.

Who gives a fuck about all that. My character just wants to avoid the Wall and be free from the influence of the gods.

I believe that user here said it well .

It's not just about her saving someone from the Wall. Being taken by a god means your afterlife is modeled after that god's domain and you'll be expected to dedicate yourself to it. That's not exactly a positive thing for someone who only farmed because they had to.