The Afterlife - Plan of the Fugue Plane [Archive] - Wizards Community

The Afterlife - Plan of the Fugue Plane [Archive] - Wizards Community

Post/Author/DateTime Post
TheRedSaber
03-07-07, 10:45 PM Hi guys!

In my campaign, the players will have to go to Kelemvor's Realm, on the fugue plane, and I was wondering if there was any available map of it's realm, with the crystal spire, the wall of the faithless and the city?

They might have to go there a few times, so I thought it would be great to have a visual of the place, even though it's pretty empty.

Anyone knows if Wizard or someone has produced a map of it?

Thanks a lot for your help!

-The RedSaber
Gray Richardson
03-08-07, 01:03 AM There is a map of the Fugue Plane in the old FR Atlas by Karen Wynn Fonstad.

Also, Rip VanWormer created a map of the Fugue Plane that was pretty cool. I wonder if he could be persuaded to post the map in this thread or at least a link.
TheRedSaber
03-08-07, 02:53 PM ;)

And where could I get that neat map by VanWormer? Or how could I contact him ?

:D
Gray Richardson
03-08-07, 09:31 PM You can find Rip on these boards, here is the link to his profile:
http://boards1.wizards.com/member.php?u=282969
Gray Richardson
03-08-07, 09:35 PM In the bottom left hand corner of the map of the cosmology in the Players Guide to Faerun, there is a picture of the Fugue Plane and Kelemvor's Crystal Spire, some of the surrounding city and a view to some hills or mountains in the distance.
Gray Richardson
03-08-07, 10:50 PM If you are not able to find a link, let me give you this rough description of the Fugue Plane.

The center of the plane is Kelemvor's Crystal Spire, a sparkling tower made of transparent rock. The PGtF depicts as looking like a giant quartz crystal, but it might actually be a little more finished than that. It may have some balconies and turrets, or at least it could if you want it to.

Before Kelemvor remade it, the Bone Castle (now the Spire) was surrounded by a moat that links to the river of black ooze that crosses the city. The moat is in turn surrounded by an inner ward of bodies, similar to the outer wall surrounding the city. There is a wide avenue that encircles the outside of the castle ward. I don't know if there is still a ward wall around the Spire, there is not one visible in the PGtF picture, but that picture is tiny and may not be entirely accurate.

The Crystal Spire stands at the center of a great circular city, the City of Judgment--which has been renamed several times, formerly known in the time of Cyric as the City of Strife and under Myrkul as the City of Suffering.

The city is arrayed around the Spire in fairly regular blocks (or boroughs, as the Atlas calls them) defined by streets and boulevards that radiate outward like spokes from the central Spire, crossed by regularly spaced avenues in concentric rings expanding out from the spire.

These boroughs or neighborhoods consist mostly of a "forest of ten-story brownstone buildings". Some neighborhoods are very nice and well kept, other boroughs are crumbling and abandoned with rubble-strewn streets. Still other areas are chaotic with grotesque and misshapen architecture that bulges out over the streets with irregular, winding paths and alleys crisscrossing the area.

The whole city is approximately 80 miles in diameter, if the scale in the Fonstad atlas is accurate. There is a Main Boulevard that runs about 40 miles from the Gate straight to the Crystal Spire at the center of town.

The city lies within a circular basin or depression with the outer wall at the highest point all around. There is a gentle downward slope through the city as you move from the outer edge to the center.

There is a pervasive haze in the city and across the plane that makes it hard to pick out landmarks from far away, and also hard to judge distances.

There is a river that runs through the city. It is referred to as a "river of black ooze", which I think is also called the River of Knives by some, and named the River Slith according to other sources. This river runs past the walls of the city and out across the plane.

The river passes next to Dendar's lair, a vast cavern wherein the Night Serpent devours the nightmares of man, and hungers for the sun which she hopes to swallow one day at the end of times when she breaks forth through a titanic iron portal from the Fugue Plane that links to a doorway beneath the Firepeaks in Chult. The hiss of her breathing is said to echo through the City of Judgment as she sleeps.

The wall that surrounds the city comprises the bodies of countless petitioners that never went on from the Fugue Plane to the afterlife of any deity. These are the Faithless, those who never chose to serve a patron god. The bodies are stacked like cord wood approximately 50 feet high. The Wall is held together with a mold that binds the bodies like mortar but that also disolves the identity of the soul so that it may eventually fuse and become one with the plane.

Beyond the Wall is a vast, featureless plain, a hazy gray landscape where petitioners mill about waiting for an agent of their god to collect them. They can wait anywhere from an hour up to a week or two before a representative of their god claims them. If a long period of time passes with no patron to fetch the soul, it will start to feel the calling, an insistent tug that compels the soul to walk to the Gate and enter the City to be judged.

In the uninhabited plain a petitioner may encounter silver-tongued devils that will try to woo and persuade the petitioner to sign up to go to the Nine Hells instead of the afterlife of his god. The devil is prohibited from lying or using force, but it is up to the DM just how much the devil can stretch the truth when trying to convince a soul to join the Blood War. The devils have certain stable portals to the Nine Hells that are permitted by Kelemvor and allow the devils to come and go.

Demons are also able somehow to punch temporary portals through to the Fugue from which they conduct brief and violent raids. The demons carry off souls to the Abyss, as many as they can before the portal closes. Kelemvor overlooks such activity so long as the demons keep their raiding light and not too brazen. But if the demons tick Kelemvor off too much, he has been known to slap them down pretty hard, even to travel to the Abyss itself to harrow the offending demon lord and reclaim the lost souls.

There are no other known portals or other methods of travel into the Fugue Plane, there are no color pools from the Astral and it is said that no living mortal may travel by any means to the Fugue Plane before his death.

I think that covers the basics. The finer details are up to you. ;)
ripvanwormer
03-08-07, 11:09 PM The map in question is here:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v149/ripvanwormer/slith.jpg

It's based in part on fan-created information on the River Slith found here (http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Vault/9974/helsrelm.htm).
Shemeska the Marauder
03-09-07, 12:16 AM The Crystal Spire appears on the schematic map of the layer of Oinos on the Gray Waste in the Planes of Conflict box set. While not necessarily to scale on an infinite plane, it shows the relative locations of other deific domains, Khin-Oin the Wasting Tower, the City at the Center, etc for anyone travelling outside of the boundaries of Kelemvor's domain.
TheRedSaber
03-09-07, 04:00 AM Wow!

Thanks a lot guys for the quick replies! That's exactly what I was looking for!

I have all the documentation I needed now for my game tomorrow. Thanks a lot to everyone, it is highly appreciated.

The best description (image) so far is still the one in the Atlas, but I find it quite odd that no other image or description has been made since... it's dating back from Myrkul's time!

Anyways, thanks a lot to everyone, your help was completely appreciated!

Have a great day!

-The RedSaber
Duedaine
03-12-07, 06:43 PM Wait. What if you are a good person but have declared no paton? Do you automatically end up Faithless? What sort of judgements are there? Do you go to a heaven or a hell if you were good/bad?
Gray Richardson
03-12-07, 09:22 PM Wait. What if you are a good personAlignment is not relevant to the equation. Afterlives are a reward that gods grant to their faithful.but have declared no paton?No patron means you have to be judged by Kelemvor. You don't have to "declare" a patron though, the god who you venerated most or had the closest bond to during life may be your patron. It's more a question of will a god claim YOU when you die. If you ever revered a god or offered a heartfelt prayer to a god that was more than lip service during your life, then you were not faithless and can probably be claimed by some deity. To be Faithless you pretty much have to have refused to ever bend a knee to a god or have actively disavowed any faith. If you had faith but betrayed your patron then you are False and the god will not come for you. If no gods (or their agents) show up to claim you from the Fugue Plane then you will be called to the City of Judgment to appear before Kelemvor for final dispensation.Do you automatically end up Faithless?No, you have to be judged by Kelemvor. Before you are judged you may be resurrected, or you can make a deal with the devils who wander about the Fugue and go to the Nine Hells. Some people get carried off in demon raids before they are sentenced or even after when demons tear souls out of the Wall to take back to the Abyss.What sort of judgements are there?We know there are at least two judgments: Faithless and False. The Faithless become inert and are stacked atop the wall that surrounds the City of Judgment. The False are sentenced to punishment. The punishment may range from light duties around the city to hard labor to painful tortures that would make a demon's stomach turn. There may be other judgments which have not yet been revealed to us. Some have speculated that reincarnation is a possibility. And it is unclear what happens to the infant dead who were unable to make a choice, though there have been many, many theories proposed.Do you go to a heaven or a hell if you were good/bad?No. An evil person may go to any of the celestial planes if he took a good deity as his patron (and the good deity comes to claim him from the Fugue). Likewise a good person may take an evil deity as his patron and could end up in the fiendish planes after death. Demons and devils will make pacts with persons of any alignment which will land those persons in the Abyss or the Nine Hells when they die.

Afterlives in the Realms are not a reward for acting in accord with your alignment. You could view it as a reward for acting in accord with your faith, but it is really more of a custody system to determine who gets the soul when it completes it's mortal life.

Post/Author/DateTime	Post
TheRedSaber 03-07-07, 10:45 PM	Hi guys! In my campaign, the players will have to go to Kelemvor's Realm, on the fugue plane, and I was wondering if there was any available map of it's realm, with the crystal spire, the wall of the faithless and the city? They might have to go there a few times, so I thought it would be great to have a visual of the place, even though it's pretty empty. Anyone knows if Wizard or someone has produced a map of it? Thanks a lot for your help! -The RedSaber
Gray Richardson 03-08-07, 01:03 AM	There is a map of the Fugue Plane in the old FR Atlas by Karen Wynn Fonstad. Also, Rip VanWormer created a map of the Fugue Plane that was pretty cool. I wonder if he could be persuaded to post the map in this thread or at least a link.
TheRedSaber 03-08-07, 02:53 PM	;) And where could I get that neat map by VanWormer? Or how could I contact him ? :D
Gray Richardson 03-08-07, 09:31 PM	You can find Rip on these boards, here is the link to his profile: http://boards1.wizards.com/member.php?u=282969
Gray Richardson 03-08-07, 09:35 PM	In the bottom left hand corner of the map of the cosmology in the Players Guide to Faerun, there is a picture of the Fugue Plane and Kelemvor's Crystal Spire, some of the surrounding city and a view to some hills or mountains in the distance.
Gray Richardson 03-08-07, 10:50 PM	If you are not able to find a link, let me give you this rough description of the Fugue Plane. The center of the plane is Kelemvor's Crystal Spire, a sparkling tower made of transparent rock. The PGtF depicts as looking like a giant quartz crystal, but it might actually be a little more finished than that. It may have some balconies and turrets, or at least it could if you want it to. Before Kelemvor remade it, the Bone Castle (now the Spire) was surrounded by a moat that links to the river of black ooze that crosses the city. The moat is in turn surrounded by an inner ward of bodies, similar to the outer wall surrounding the city. There is a wide avenue that encircles the outside of the castle ward. I don't know if there is still a ward wall around the Spire, there is not one visible in the PGtF picture, but that picture is tiny and may not be entirely accurate. The Crystal Spire stands at the center of a great circular city, the City of Judgment--which has been renamed several times, formerly known in the time of Cyric as the City of Strife and under Myrkul as the City of Suffering. The city is arrayed around the Spire in fairly regular blocks (or boroughs, as the Atlas calls them) defined by streets and boulevards that radiate outward like spokes from the central Spire, crossed by regularly spaced avenues in concentric rings expanding out from the spire. These boroughs or neighborhoods consist mostly of a "forest of ten-story brownstone buildings". Some neighborhoods are very nice and well kept, other boroughs are crumbling and abandoned with rubble-strewn streets. Still other areas are chaotic with grotesque and misshapen architecture that bulges out over the streets with irregular, winding paths and alleys crisscrossing the area. The whole city is approximately 80 miles in diameter, if the scale in the Fonstad atlas is accurate. There is a Main Boulevard that runs about 40 miles from the Gate straight to the Crystal Spire at the center of town. The city lies within a circular basin or depression with the outer wall at the highest point all around. There is a gentle downward slope through the city as you move from the outer edge to the center. There is a pervasive haze in the city and across the plane that makes it hard to pick out landmarks from far away, and also hard to judge distances. There is a river that runs through the city. It is referred to as a "river of black ooze", which I think is also called the River of Knives by some, and named the River Slith according to other sources. This river runs past the walls of the city and out across the plane. The river passes next to Dendar's lair, a vast cavern wherein the Night Serpent devours the nightmares of man, and hungers for the sun which she hopes to swallow one day at the end of times when she breaks forth through a titanic iron portal from the Fugue Plane that links to a doorway beneath the Firepeaks in Chult. The hiss of her breathing is said to echo through the City of Judgment as she sleeps. The wall that surrounds the city comprises the bodies of countless petitioners that never went on from the Fugue Plane to the afterlife of any deity. These are the Faithless, those who never chose to serve a patron god. The bodies are stacked like cord wood approximately 50 feet high. The Wall is held together with a mold that binds the bodies like mortar but that also disolves the identity of the soul so that it may eventually fuse and become one with the plane. Beyond the Wall is a vast, featureless plain, a hazy gray landscape where petitioners mill about waiting for an agent of their god to collect them. They can wait anywhere from an hour up to a week or two before a representative of their god claims them. If a long period of time passes with no patron to fetch the soul, it will start to feel the calling, an insistent tug that compels the soul to walk to the Gate and enter the City to be judged. In the uninhabited plain a petitioner may encounter silver-tongued devils that will try to woo and persuade the petitioner to sign up to go to the Nine Hells instead of the afterlife of his god. The devil is prohibited from lying or using force, but it is up to the DM just how much the devil can stretch the truth when trying to convince a soul to join the Blood War. The devils have certain stable portals to the Nine Hells that are permitted by Kelemvor and allow the devils to come and go. Demons are also able somehow to punch temporary portals through to the Fugue from which they conduct brief and violent raids. The demons carry off souls to the Abyss, as many as they can before the portal closes. Kelemvor overlooks such activity so long as the demons keep their raiding light and not too brazen. But if the demons tick Kelemvor off too much, he has been known to slap them down pretty hard, even to travel to the Abyss itself to harrow the offending demon lord and reclaim the lost souls. There are no other known portals or other methods of travel into the Fugue Plane, there are no color pools from the Astral and it is said that no living mortal may travel by any means to the Fugue Plane before his death. I think that covers the basics. The finer details are up to you. ;)
ripvanwormer 03-08-07, 11:09 PM	The map in question is here: http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v149/ripvanwormer/slith.jpg It's based in part on fan-created information on the River Slith found here (http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Vault/9974/helsrelm.htm).
Shemeska the Marauder 03-09-07, 12:16 AM	The Crystal Spire appears on the schematic map of the layer of Oinos on the Gray Waste in the Planes of Conflict box set. While not necessarily to scale on an infinite plane, it shows the relative locations of other deific domains, Khin-Oin the Wasting Tower, the City at the Center, etc for anyone travelling outside of the boundaries of Kelemvor's domain.
TheRedSaber 03-09-07, 04:00 AM	Wow! Thanks a lot guys for the quick replies! That's exactly what I was looking for! I have all the documentation I needed now for my game tomorrow. Thanks a lot to everyone, it is highly appreciated. The best description (image) so far is still the one in the Atlas, but I find it quite odd that no other image or description has been made since... it's dating back from Myrkul's time! Anyways, thanks a lot to everyone, your help was completely appreciated! Have a great day! -The RedSaber
Duedaine 03-12-07, 06:43 PM	Wait. What if you are a good person but have declared no paton? Do you automatically end up Faithless? What sort of judgements are there? Do you go to a heaven or a hell if you were good/bad?
Gray Richardson 03-12-07, 09:22 PM	Wait. What if you are a good personAlignment is not relevant to the equation. Afterlives are a reward that gods grant to their faithful.but have declared no paton?No patron means you have to be judged by Kelemvor. You don't have to "declare" a patron though, the god who you venerated most or had the closest bond to during life may be your patron. It's more a question of will a god claim YOU when you die. If you ever revered a god or offered a heartfelt prayer to a god that was more than lip service during your life, then you were not faithless and can probably be claimed by some deity. To be Faithless you pretty much have to have refused to ever bend a knee to a god or have actively disavowed any faith. If you had faith but betrayed your patron then you are False and the god will not come for you. If no gods (or their agents) show up to claim you from the Fugue Plane then you will be called to the City of Judgment to appear before Kelemvor for final dispensation.Do you automatically end up Faithless?No, you have to be judged by Kelemvor. Before you are judged you may be resurrected, or you can make a deal with the devils who wander about the Fugue and go to the Nine Hells. Some people get carried off in demon raids before they are sentenced or even after when demons tear souls out of the Wall to take back to the Abyss.What sort of judgements are there?We know there are at least two judgments: Faithless and False. The Faithless become inert and are stacked atop the wall that surrounds the City of Judgment. The False are sentenced to punishment. The punishment may range from light duties around the city to hard labor to painful tortures that would make a demon's stomach turn. There may be other judgments which have not yet been revealed to us. Some have speculated that reincarnation is a possibility. And it is unclear what happens to the infant dead who were unable to make a choice, though there have been many, many theories proposed.Do you go to a heaven or a hell if you were good/bad?No. An evil person may go to any of the celestial planes if he took a good deity as his patron (and the good deity comes to claim him from the Fugue). Likewise a good person may take an evil deity as his patron and could end up in the fiendish planes after death. Demons and devils will make pacts with persons of any alignment which will land those persons in the Abyss or the Nine Hells when they die. Afterlives in the Realms are not a reward for acting in accord with your alignment. You could view it as a reward for acting in accord with your faith, but it is really more of a custody system to determine who gets the soul when it completes it's mortal life.