Lack of Information on Death [Archive] - Wizards Community

Lack of Information on Death [Archive] - Wizards Community

Post/Author/DateTime Post
Mark_Aged
08-30-07, 03:38 PM Okay, it says when you die, you go to your deity's or your alignment's plane of existents. Then what? Can you fight the monsters there, as though you just went there by a spell or portal? What happens if you die again? Nothing? What happens if your buddies travel there, then teleport you and their selves out? Does anyone know if there is a book or something that explains this subject better then this?:

When a living creature dies, its soul departs its body, leaves the Material Plane, travels through the Astral Plane, and goes to abide on the plane where the creature’s deity resides. If the creature did not worship a deity, its soul departs to the plane corresponding to its alignment.
Shemeska the Marauder
08-30-07, 05:56 PM When a mortal dies, their soul migrates to the Outer Plane that most closely matches their alignment, or to the divine realm of any deific patron they had. They then manifest upon that plane as what is known as the petitioner. Petitioners often appear as an idealized version of the person during life, but usually altered in some way to reflect the nature of the plane, or the desires of their deity.

Petitioners are stripped of mortal memories, down to their core personality and alignment. They're a more purified form of the person, and they slowly grow closer and closer to the alignment of their plane, or their patron deity, eventually reaching a point where they undergo a transfigurative moment and merge with the plane or deity.

Some planes have specific forms for petitioners. Petitioners of the Gray Waste, and some other lower planes usually become larvae, wormlike beings with the head of the person during life. Such larvae quickly, or spontaneously, may become warped into actual lowest type fiends like manes, dretches, or lemures depending on the plane we're talking about. Petitioners to Mount Celestia become lantern archons. Etc.

Petitioners that die on their home plane are absorbed by the plane and potentially have their soulstuff recycled in a way, or obliterated if they die outside that plane.

Petitioners act as befits the nature of their plane, and by extension their own inner nature. Petitioners to the Beastlands eventually become celestial animals, and recreate an idealized cycle of nature. Petitioners to Acheron endlessly fight in pointless wars. Petitioners to Ysgard fight the good fight, only to rise again the same as before the next day, till eventually becoming one with that plane. Petitioners to the Abyss revel in that plane's ultimate freedom and utmost butchery, dying horribly or potentially becoming a fiend or even an archfiend (Orcus for instance was once a CE mortal).

More detail on this can be found in the 3e Manual of the Planes, 3.5 Fiendish Codex I and II, and further detail in various 2e Planescape books.
Mark_Aged
08-31-07, 10:54 AM Okay, thanks. Sounds kind of lame when you die, I think I'm going to write my own alternative death rules.
Johngalt137
08-31-07, 11:56 AM Okay, it says when you die, you go to your deity's or your alignment's plane of existents. Then what? Can you fight the monsters there, as though you just went there by a spell or portal? What happens if you die again? Nothing? What happens if your buddies travel there, then teleport you and their selves out? Does anyone know if there is a book or something that explains this subject better then this?:

According to the Manual of the Planes the soul becomes a petitioner, which retains no memories of their previous life.
Lobsopdoy
08-31-07, 01:00 PM I always assumed that someone absorbed into a plane held onto some kind of awareness, of course it's not canon though. Like being absorbed into Elysium would be similar to reaching nirvana
ripvanwormer
08-31-07, 02:14 PM I always assumed that someone absorbed into a plane held onto some kind of awareness, of course it's not canon though. Like being absorbed into Elysium would be similar to reaching nirvana

That's how I choose to see it. Someone merged with a plane or god becomes part of a gestalt consciousness, a higher form of being.

Of course, there's meant to be a distinction between people who merge voluntarily and those who are simply killed. The latter is obviously more traumatic, and less of their personality will survive (at least, in one piece - it may survive in small bits scattered throughout the plane and the Astral).
Naderion
08-31-07, 04:25 PM I like the idea of how the change from petitioner to part of the plane works in the Beastlands. Over the years?, centuries?, millenia? the old, human-like form becomes more and more unimportant until one day they no longer put on clothes and their wanderings from their huts become longer and longer until one day they just don't come back and have completely become part of the plane.
I think unless you become a fiend or celestial, this is actually the ultimate fate of souls on every plane but usually more of a spiritual process than in form or behaviour.
NobodyRemembersThis
08-31-07, 04:37 PM And it is wierdness like this that makes me glad they are finally jettisoning the Planescape <foolishness>* for 4E. Hopefully they will bring in something that is needlessly complicated and ridiculously unbelieveable.

*Planescape is a good campaign setting. It is fun and vibrant and complicated and engaging. As its own setting. It was never meant to be core. The little bit of it that has been transitioned into 3.X in the core is a sacred cow they seem to be removing for 4E.
Shemeska the Marauder
08-31-07, 05:01 PM *Planescape is a good campaign setting. It is fun and vibrant and complicated and engaging. As its own setting. It was never meant to be core. The little bit of it that has been transitioned into 3.X in the core is a sacred cow they seem to be removing for 4E.

Well the unified cosmology of 1e and 2e would certainly argue against that, and PS wasn't so much a setting as a meta-setting product line that focused and elaborated upon that unified cosmology. It didn't have a seperate product line in 3e, but it was translated to the core cosmology with some cosmetic alterations, and we saw its influence steadily increase over time as the creative restrictions of "you can't talk about anything beyond the core gods and implied setting" was steadily and increasingly junked (FC:I, FC:II, Expedition to the Demonweb Pits, material in Dragon, the Dungeon Adventure Paths, etc).

4e might be departing from this increasingly prominant stream of thought entirely, it's not really certain yet with some of the mixed signals we've gotten. Perhaps they'll not really handle the planes much, and eventually put out an actual Planescape line a few years from now.

Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Mark_Aged 08-30-07, 03:38 PM	Okay, it says when you die, you go to your deity's or your alignment's plane of existents. Then what? Can you fight the monsters there, as though you just went there by a spell or portal? What happens if you die again? Nothing? What happens if your buddies travel there, then teleport you and their selves out? Does anyone know if there is a book or something that explains this subject better then this?: When a living creature dies, its soul departs its body, leaves the Material Plane, travels through the Astral Plane, and goes to abide on the plane where the creature’s deity resides. If the creature did not worship a deity, its soul departs to the plane corresponding to its alignment.
Shemeska the Marauder 08-30-07, 05:56 PM	When a mortal dies, their soul migrates to the Outer Plane that most closely matches their alignment, or to the divine realm of any deific patron they had. They then manifest upon that plane as what is known as the petitioner. Petitioners often appear as an idealized version of the person during life, but usually altered in some way to reflect the nature of the plane, or the desires of their deity. Petitioners are stripped of mortal memories, down to their core personality and alignment. They're a more purified form of the person, and they slowly grow closer and closer to the alignment of their plane, or their patron deity, eventually reaching a point where they undergo a transfigurative moment and merge with the plane or deity. Some planes have specific forms for petitioners. Petitioners of the Gray Waste, and some other lower planes usually become larvae, wormlike beings with the head of the person during life. Such larvae quickly, or spontaneously, may become warped into actual lowest type fiends like manes, dretches, or lemures depending on the plane we're talking about. Petitioners to Mount Celestia become lantern archons. Etc. Petitioners that die on their home plane are absorbed by the plane and potentially have their soulstuff recycled in a way, or obliterated if they die outside that plane. Petitioners act as befits the nature of their plane, and by extension their own inner nature. Petitioners to the Beastlands eventually become celestial animals, and recreate an idealized cycle of nature. Petitioners to Acheron endlessly fight in pointless wars. Petitioners to Ysgard fight the good fight, only to rise again the same as before the next day, till eventually becoming one with that plane. Petitioners to the Abyss revel in that plane's ultimate freedom and utmost butchery, dying horribly or potentially becoming a fiend or even an archfiend (Orcus for instance was once a CE mortal). More detail on this can be found in the 3e Manual of the Planes, 3.5 Fiendish Codex I and II, and further detail in various 2e Planescape books.
Mark_Aged 08-31-07, 10:54 AM	Okay, thanks. Sounds kind of lame when you die, I think I'm going to write my own alternative death rules.
Johngalt137 08-31-07, 11:56 AM	Okay, it says when you die, you go to your deity's or your alignment's plane of existents. Then what? Can you fight the monsters there, as though you just went there by a spell or portal? What happens if you die again? Nothing? What happens if your buddies travel there, then teleport you and their selves out? Does anyone know if there is a book or something that explains this subject better then this?: According to the Manual of the Planes the soul becomes a petitioner, which retains no memories of their previous life.
Lobsopdoy 08-31-07, 01:00 PM	I always assumed that someone absorbed into a plane held onto some kind of awareness, of course it's not canon though. Like being absorbed into Elysium would be similar to reaching nirvana
ripvanwormer 08-31-07, 02:14 PM	I always assumed that someone absorbed into a plane held onto some kind of awareness, of course it's not canon though. Like being absorbed into Elysium would be similar to reaching nirvana That's how I choose to see it. Someone merged with a plane or god becomes part of a gestalt consciousness, a higher form of being. Of course, there's meant to be a distinction between people who merge voluntarily and those who are simply killed. The latter is obviously more traumatic, and less of their personality will survive (at least, in one piece - it may survive in small bits scattered throughout the plane and the Astral).
Naderion 08-31-07, 04:25 PM	I like the idea of how the change from petitioner to part of the plane works in the Beastlands. Over the years?, centuries?, millenia? the old, human-like form becomes more and more unimportant until one day they no longer put on clothes and their wanderings from their huts become longer and longer until one day they just don't come back and have completely become part of the plane. I think unless you become a fiend or celestial, this is actually the ultimate fate of souls on every plane but usually more of a spiritual process than in form or behaviour.
NobodyRemembersThis 08-31-07, 04:37 PM	And it is wierdness like this that makes me glad they are finally jettisoning the Planescape <foolishness>* for 4E. Hopefully they will bring in something that is needlessly complicated and ridiculously unbelieveable. *Planescape is a good campaign setting. It is fun and vibrant and complicated and engaging. As its own setting. It was never meant to be core. The little bit of it that has been transitioned into 3.X in the core is a sacred cow they seem to be removing for 4E.
Shemeska the Marauder 08-31-07, 05:01 PM	*Planescape is a good campaign setting. It is fun and vibrant and complicated and engaging. As its own setting. It was never meant to be core. The little bit of it that has been transitioned into 3.X in the core is a sacred cow they seem to be removing for 4E. Well the unified cosmology of 1e and 2e would certainly argue against that, and PS wasn't so much a setting as a meta-setting product line that focused and elaborated upon that unified cosmology. It didn't have a seperate product line in 3e, but it was translated to the core cosmology with some cosmetic alterations, and we saw its influence steadily increase over time as the creative restrictions of "you can't talk about anything beyond the core gods and implied setting" was steadily and increasingly junked (FC:I, FC:II, Expedition to the Demonweb Pits, material in Dragon, the Dungeon Adventure Paths, etc). 4e might be departing from this increasingly prominant stream of thought entirely, it's not really certain yet with some of the mixed signals we've gotten. Perhaps they'll not really handle the planes much, and eventually put out an actual Planescape line a few years from now.