Post/Author/DateTime	Post
mephron 09-18-07, 08:04 AM	...what does that mean in the Realms? Are you suddenly one of the False? Does the god that killed your god get to move you into his realm, like you're some kind of poker chip? Do you hang around until things unravel and then become part of the fabric of the plane? With the GHotR mentioning a bunch of deific deadiness, this may be a question, especially since some priests may not know about your god having been deadified when they try that resurrection on your dead self.
Crazygx34 09-18-07, 08:24 AM	I don't know for sure but I think when a god die the one who killed him take is duty as god like god of light, darkness,pain,so on. Or a new one is assigned by Ao to the new vacant duty. But I think Ao rarely disrupt the flow of squabble between god. Like in time of trouble bhaal was kill and Mirkul. THey was god of assasination and death. Kelemvor I think was assigned the new god of the two duty and surely their follower become Kelemvor follower. I not know for sure... But what they become otherwise, they put them in the living wall.. I don't think so.. maybe they they follow their god...
Suin Bahhar 09-18-07, 10:14 AM	If the dead gods realm isn't destroyed a soulpetitioner would just wonder about the realm it is in. At some point it could be picked up by some sort of planar entity, be it devils with a contract, demons with a kidnapping or a messenger of the diety with the best fitting portfolio.
Gray Richardson 09-18-07, 04:20 PM	Petitioners (most of them anyway) have the "planar commitment" special quality. This means they are bound to and cannot leave their plane. Any attempt to leave just teleports them to a random destination elsewhere on the plane. However, that only applies to the plane, not the divine realm of their god. If the god dies, then things may continue as usual, for a time, in his divine realm. His petitioners may carry on waiting for him to return or for someone to take his place. There may be a period of great mourning and elaborate funeral rituals for the god. His solars and planetars (or whatever divine minions he has) will try to keep some order and figure out what to do next. If another god does not take up the mantle and/or portfolios of the dead god then the realm itself will start to fade and disolve over time without an infusion of divine power to sustain it. Dramatic weather effects, earthquakes and even strange monsters may plague the divine realm as it starts to fade out. But it is unclear how long this fading out period takes. I think there was some indication in On Hallowed Ground that it could take years, but this time period may be variable depending on such factors as the strength of the god and perhaps things like how many souls had merged with the realm or vestigial belief and/or worship. The petitioners are free to leave the god's divine realm and travel to other areas on the plane. Assuming that there are other divine realms or areas to go to. Many petitioners might pick up and move to an allied god's realm that lives on the same plane as the dead god. Or they could settle in one of the wilderness areas of the plane on the outskirts of the divine realms. Some petitioners might become so depressed that their god died, they might just "give up" and this could perhaps allow them to go ahead and merge with the plane. I suppose that this could have a paradoxical effect of helping to sustain the divine realm for a little bit longer if souls merge with it. It might delay the dissolution process somewhat. A neighboring god might just move in and assume stewardship or outright claim the realm and the petitioners for his own. The two realms could then merge into one. If all the gods on a plane were to die, then the whole plane would either dissolve into the astral or lose all ties to the astral and slip beyond the cosmos. In Tom Costa's "Prestige in the Realms (http://www.ericlboyd.com/dnd/PrestigeintheRealms.pdf.zip)" pdf he describes the lost plane of Zigguraxus, the home plane of the Untheric gods, which is in that fading process now due to the recent death of Gilgeam, the last god of that pantheon. If I recall, the petitioners of that plane are ghost-like beings that are half faded away, becoming more insubstantial with each passing day. It is not clear how long it will take for Zigguraxus to completely disolve, but Gilgeam died some years ago so the whole process might take a few years or decades to complete.
MrSpaceBear 09-19-07, 02:30 AM	I wonder if Kelemvor would go about and collect the souls. All unclaimed souls fall under his rule, and all who did not claim a god must submit to his judgement. Just a thought....
Gray Richardson 09-19-07, 03:11 PM	Kelemvor's authority is mostly over the Fugue Plane. All souls go to the Fugue when they die. It is sort of the waiting room of the dead. Kelemvor only has authority over souls that go unclaimed from the Fugue (and his own petitioners of course). Once the soul is picked up from the Fugue, Kelemvor would not have any say in what happens to the soul, even if that soul's god died at a later date. If a recently deceased soul's patron guide died while the soul was still waiting in the Fugue Plane to be picked up, it is still likely that the soul would get picked up any way by a divine minion (be it angel, justicator, or fiend of some sort) and taken back to that god's divine realm. Even if the god had died, his minions would still probably carry on the tasks assigned to them for a goodly while after his passing. They would cling tightly to the status quo and their duties until such matters were resolved. At least that is often what people do in times of uncertainty and tragedy. Gods don't usually go in person to collect the dead from the Fugue, they send agents mostly. When Marduk died in the Orcgate wars, Bahamut assumed Marduk's name as an alias. Presumably he also assumed stewardship of Marduk's divine realm on Zigguraxus. While the lore does not state specifically any of the details of what happened to those petitioners, I presume he maintained the realm in Zigguraxus for a period of time before finally combining it with his own realm. Tiamat used to have a divine realm in Zigguraxas but she relocated it recently to Dragon Eyrie. I would imagine Bahamut did the same thing and physically (or metaphysically) moved Marduk's realm to either the House of the Triad or Dragon Eyrie. While it hasn't been explicitly stated, I believe Bahamut has a realm in both planes, or his realm moves back and forth between them, or perhaps there is a soft border between them linking the two locales across planar boundaries. When Waukeen was taken prisoner by Graz'zt, LLiira took stewardship of Waukeen's realm (the Marketplace Eternal) and moved it from the House of Knowledge to Brightwater, where it has been ever since, even though Waukeen was freed and has resumed control of her divine realm. So gods do have the ability to move divine realms, not only around on a plane, but even from one plane to another. There are several examples of this in the past and precedents do exist for deities taking over realms from other gods.
Shuuya 09-19-07, 09:03 PM	I don't know the canonical answer but Gray Richardson's answer seems fairly feasible. The only thing that bugs me is what about the worshippers of dead gods? Take the obvious example, Bhaal. He still has worshippers, albeit new ones since the Time of Troubles thanks to Bane. Even though their numbers are relatively few and tiny compared to the living gods they still exist. I can't help but wonder what would happen to worshippers of the dead Bhaal? Would they simply be judged as the False? Would they go to Bane's realm... or the realm of the portfolio with Cyric and his followers (where I doubt they'd be welcome.) Or does Bhaal's realm somehow still live on, yet it's slowly fading or it lives on due to the small amount of worship he gets? Perhaps worshipping him makes his essence grow stronger and might lead to a return, but that's just wishful thinking as a Cyric-hater. What do you guys think? Or, even better, what's the canonical answer if there is one? EDIT: Then again they might just go to Loviatar or Talona since they used to serve Bhaal...
Gray Richardson 09-19-07, 10:12 PM	That is a really good question. If some other god has taken the dead god's name as an alias, then you would most likely be picked up by an agent of the god using the alias and escorted back to the substitute god's divine realm. In your specific example, Cyric is using the name Bhaal as an alias, so all Bhaal worshipers, whether they know Bhaal is dead or not, would likely be collected from the Fugue by Cyric's divine agents and brought back to the Supreme Throne. But assuming no deity has taken the god's name as an alias, and mortals still choose the dead god as a patron, years or centuries after his demise, then I can only offer some educated guesses: 1) If you choose a dead god as your patron, you might well be judged Faithless. If no divine agent collected your soul from the Fugue, then you would be called to Kelemvor's city for divine judgment. If you were to be judged Faithless then your inert body would be cast upon the wall. 2) An agent of the dead god might still collect your soul from the Fugue. Perhaps a devoted solar might still show up to collect the occasional petitioner to his long dead god. If there is anything at all left of the god's divine realm he might take you there, or if not he might take you to a new place, maybe a divine refugee camp, some place where they hold vigil and pray for the resurrection of their god, and carry out his last orders trying to live (or afterlive) as if he never died or in eternal wait for him to come back. 3) An agent of the dead god might still collect your soul and then do something really devious with it. (Especially if your god had evil or even neutral minions.) They might still show up to the Fugue and collect you, and then maybe sacrifice your soul to the god corpse in the Astral in hopes of maintaining the vestigial essence within, and providing spell energy for those clerics who take the Servant of the Fallen feat. 4) Evil divine minions might collect your soul and sell it into slavery to another evil god, or sell it to a night hag as part of the larva trade, or might sell you into service as a soldier in the Blood War. 5) It is also possible that you might not be able to chose a dead god as your patron. Perhaps, no matter what choice you thought you were making, if the god is dead then the choice may not count, and the god next down on your list becomes your patron god by default. Under this theory, say you worship Amaunator (I don't believe anyone else is using his name as an alias). You might be a fervent worshiper, hold him in highest esteem, keep his holy days and perform his sacraments. But if you ever gave thanks to Lathander for the dawn, or prayed for Chauntea to bless the crops, whichever god you venerated next most, no matter how minimal that worship might be, might conceivably lay claim to your soul on your death as your real patron god--since the one you thought you had chosen isn't eligible. 6) You wait on the Fugue Plane and no one shows up to get you. You feel the calling to go into the city for judgment and you stand before Kelemvor. He tells you to your face that your god is dead. Then maybe, seeing as you are not exactly Faithless, but rather operating under a misapprehension, he explains your options to you and asks if there is any other "living" god you would like to choose. Then if you choose one, he calls for their minion to come collect you. And if you refuse to choose a new patron he throws you on the wall and doesn't think twice about it, since he gave you an out and you didn't take it. 7) if you are standing around on the Fugue for any length of time, and no god comes to claim you, you will definitely be approached by a devil, who will explain how the 9 Hells are really a pretty wonderful place of opportunity for a soul such as yourself. Or he may offer you recruitment into the Blood War with a sizable signing bonus, or whatever incentives would appeal to a dead soul. If you take him up on his offer you will go straight off to hell, so the question of your ultimate fate would no longer be at issue. 8) Sometimes demons come to the Fugue to raid and carry off souls. If they attack while you are standing around, then you will get carted off to the Abyss by force and compelled to fight in the Blood War or some other nefarious end. 9) It is a remote possibility that no god would come to claim you, but you might not feel the call of Kelemvor's city either. You might just roam the Fugue Plane indefinitely. If you wander too close to Dendar's cave you might get eaten. It may be that souls naturally petrify on this plane without a divine spark to infuse them. People have always assumed that Kelemvor turns the Faithless into stone on purpose, but it may just be a natural process that without an animating spark, the soul just turns to stone on its own. Kelemvor may just stack these inanimate souls on the Wall in order to keep them from cluttering up his city and to offer some protection against demon raids. But a soul wandering free on the Fugue Plane might turn to stone anyways, like Lot's wife. Over time the stone erodes and wears away and joins with the plane. The incarnum or essence of such "merged" souls strengthens the infrastructure of the plane. 10) there may be small communities of feral souls on the Fugue who wander the plane and resist or avoid the call to judgment. Who knows how they would get by or what they would do. They could conceivably hide in caves, perhaps in the cavern system where Dendar lives. They might be very skittish, constantly hiding. The homeless of the Fugue. They might even be able to sneak into the city and live in some of the burned-out, abandoned districts there, of which there are many if I recall.
MarkusTay63 09-19-07, 10:21 PM	Nice summations, Gray. :D BTW, 'grats on your Grand History credit - way to raise the bar. ;)
Shuuya 09-20-07, 08:12 AM	Wow, great answer Gray. I don't know which solution I'd use in my game, but all of the options certainly make sense.
Shemeska the Marauder 09-20-07, 07:08 PM	It's probably very dependant on what plane the dead god's realm is within, who kills them, how they're killed, and what deific allies they might have. 1) Petitioners are destroyed by the backlash of expended deific power at the moment of their patron's death. 2) Petitioners are automatically adopted (for lack of a better term) by a deity allied to their dead patron, or by the deity who takes the portfolio of their patron (who may or may not be the killer). 3) The petitioners might be devoured or destroyed by their patron's killer, ransomed to interested gods, or sold to the highest bidder among the fiends, etc. 4) If on the lower planes: All you can eat buffet for the fiends as the borders of the deific domain fray and finally collapse, spilling out into the plane at large it sat within, with all of its contents free for the taking by the lords of the lower planes 5) Petitioners might be bound within a slowly imploding or fading deific domain, or trapped upon their god's deific godisle drifting in the Astral plane like stranded victims of a shipwreck, calling out to any who will listen to keep the memory of their fallen patron alive, in the vain hope of returning him to life by force of worship.
1 ton ghost 09-21-07, 03:41 PM	theoretically, Kelemvore is fairly just and would recognize that your intentions to the deceased god were true. Jegal would advise him as per usual and he's got your entire life/death documented anyway and he funnels that to Kelemvor. you get judged, weighed, and the standard treatment, but i suppose they'd throw you a bone as it was no fault of your own. choose a new deity to run off w/ or go in the wall i guess...
Straploknight 09-22-07, 07:21 PM	Man, that enough to make somebody go for lichdom or some other form of immortaility, carted off, devoured, dissolution, ect.
createvmind 09-23-07, 12:47 AM	Hello Sir Gray, Since we on the topic of souls, I wonder what happens to a half-orc who worships Clangeddin, will he be denied for being a half-orc and the fact that Clangeddin is a dwarven god?
ElberethSilverleaf 09-23-07, 01:01 AM	Why do you even need a god in the new 4e realms. Wouldn't belief in an ethos or philosophy suffice?
1 ton ghost 09-23-07, 02:39 AM	Why do you even need a god in the new 4e realms. Wouldn't belief in an ethos or philosophy suffice? no, i totally feel where you're coming from but... -FR has more dieties than any other campaign setting (which i love, mo' options the mo' betta') -undeniable proof of their existance (the Weave, Time of Troubles, various miracles and scary $hit) -Divination & Communion are basically phone calls to god 'x' and bla bla bla. w/ all this, i'm guessin' that being faithless or false is a major slap in the face and punishment, though a bit hammy and hackneyed, is said soul going into the wall in the Fugue Plane. not sure why they chose that for metaphorical value or they just pulled it out of a hat. who knows. now i think you can still do normal D&D options, "pick 2 domains" and go w/out benefit of a diety, but post-mortem before Kelemvor & Jergal things will get, um, awkward... my understanding is thus, w/ so many gods for so many things, failing to acknowledge their superiority and take one as patron is quite arrogant...unless you are a god-to-be, ala cyric, something like that. it's like most agnostics here, grounded scientifically; they think there is a higher power as reason typically dictates "there is always a bigger fish", they just have the logic and humility (?) to admit they're not sure how to respect and/or worship it/him/her. no one knows, but i have no illusions about it.
ElberethSilverleaf 09-23-07, 03:00 AM	So where did all of the Sun, Moon and Star Elves, ancestors and parents the 4edition "Fey" (blegh) go?
ElberethSilverleaf 09-23-07, 03:00 AM	So where did all of the Sun, Moon and Star Elves, ancestors and parents the 4edition "Fey" (blegh) go?
ElberethSilverleaf 09-23-07, 03:06 AM	ghost i understand where you're coming from but can't comprehend a good rightous person being punished forever simply because he felt the gods were selfserving jerks. I think the whole "faithless" "canon" was instituted when TSR was trying to distance itself from being godless and demonic... we've been saddled with it ever since. THe same goes for all of that "AO" garbage. "Alpha and Omega"? Give me a break, they were placating religous nuts.
1 ton ghost 09-23-07, 03:18 AM	ah, a reasonable man. yeah, the marketing aspect is frequently forgotten in the fervor of the mechanics in game. it is entirely possible and more than a little feasible. it is a theoretetical that would never come in up my campaigns, and i wouldn't hamstring a PC for his god dying on him and having such a rigid judgment. if he just grew up faithless, etc., i would probably just say he's in some limbo-esque. not all the gods are selfish, but i suppose that's depending on one's POV. i don't mess w/ divinity too much and i don't care about press relaases and public welfare over a game. bigger fish to fry in this world than stirring the $hit pot in an imaginary one...
Gray Richardson 09-23-07, 05:00 PM	I wonder what happens to a half-orc who worships Clangeddin, will he be denied for being a half-orc and the fact that Clangeddin is a dwarven god?He will not be denied at all. While it may be unusual, no race is prohibited from worshiping any god. A half-orc that worships Clangeddin as his patron will have his soul collected from the Fugue plane on his death by an agent of Clangeddin. The soul will be brought back to Dwarfhome where it will appear as a "sturdy dwarf." The Players Guide to Faerūn tells us specifically that all "petitioners of this plane--even those few who were not dwarves in their mortal lives--appear as sturdy dwarves here." So yes, half-orcs, humans, elves, even full blown orcs or even dragons may take Clangeddin as a patron (though this would be extremely rare) and will be taken to the dwarven paradise upon their death where they will live out their afterlife as a dwarven petitioner.
Gray Richardson 09-23-07, 05:18 PM	w/ all this, i'm guessin' that being faithless or false is a major slap in the face and punishment, though a bit hammy and hackneyed, is said soul going into the wall in the Fugue Plane. not sure why they chose that for metaphorical value or they just pulled it out of a hat. who knows.It's not that it is a punishment. You have to realize that all the afterlives in this cosmos are essentially private clubs. You have to be a member to enter. You become a member by selecting a patron god. Which is the sole requirement. You don't even have to go to church or ever even pay a tithe. So long as you are a member in good standing you can go to your patron god's afterlife when you die. Mortals who don't join (by choosing not to select a patron god or pay obeisance to any god) can't enter. It is not a punishment. Presumably they are stuck in the Fugue Plane because they can't leave without a patron god. Everyone just assumes Kelemvor turns the Faithless into statues but that may not be what is really going on. More likely without a divine spark to animate it, the soul begins to petrify on it's own. A natural process of the plane is that those petrified souls begin to merge with the plane itself. Kelemvor probably just stacks them on the Wall as a practical measure to keep them from cluttering up the streets of his city. And it of course provides protection from demon raids. And it stands as a powerful symbol to all souls as to what can happen if you don't choose a patron god. Again, I point out that this is not a punishment. Merely a consequence of one's own choices. It is not particularly painful. Maybe a tad boring. It is not an eternal torture. And regardless, the souls in the wall eventually merge with the plane, so being stacked on the wall is only a temporary situation in any event. There are certainly planes where you can go and suffer worse fates. The Wall is nothing compared to some of the tortures devised for the Hells or the Abyss or Loviatar's realm. The Wall is a relatively neutral fate. Not pleasant but neither particularly bad.
Suin Bahhar 09-23-07, 06:24 PM	Those were very interesting posts.