One of the PCs is a Cloistered Cleric very interested in the Planes. Once he acquires the levels and prereqs, he will be taking the Planar Touchstone Feat, and his schtick is summoning creatures from Celestia. he wants to know more about what happens to mortals from the Prime Material after they die: do they go on to an Outer Plane based on their deeds, go to Limbo, cease to exist, etc.
I've been reading the DMG and the Manual of the Planes, but I haven't found a lot of detailed discussion about the fate of souls, so I'm wondering how other people have handled them in their worlds/campaigns. Here are a couple of thoughts I've had so far.
After death, the soul is tied to the body for some length of time. This is how spells like Raise Dead, Resurrection or Speak with Dead are able to work. Over time that link grows weaker, requiring more powerful magic to reestablish it.
Mindless undead have no soul. Intelligent undead's souls were trapped with their body after dead, and obviously still wander the PM or other planes as appropriate.
At death, the souls of PM mortals begin a journey to the plane of the deity they were most closely associated with in life. If their actions in life were closely aligned with their deity, they may immediately go to his/her plane. Otherwise, they may start out in Limbo or somewhere else, and have to strive to reach their preferred plane somehow. Perhaps a Lawful Good person who committed a certain amount of Evil in his life would start on the Lawful Neutral plane, and based on his behavior there will either remain indefinitely or cross over to the LG plane.
Certain souls from the PM whose lives very closely adhere to their deity's alignment become minions of the deity, transforming into outsider (e.g. celestial, fiend, etc.) of the appropriate alignment.
To deal with the possible problem of infinite souls, here are a couple ideas:
-Souls that end up in Limbo can be reincarnated on the PM.
-Souls that are not strongly aligned simply cease to exist.
-The planes are infinite, so infinite souls is not a problem.
Am I missing the places in the published material where they discuss this in more detail? How do you handle this in your world? What problems should I look out for in creating this part of the cosmology (I want the world to be as internally consistent as possible)? Are their spells other than the obvious that I should take into account when crafting the afterlife metaphysics?
TIA.
As a DM who spent a lot lot time creating and building homebrew worlds through 3e and 3.5e, I have used variations of all the themes you've presented. Sometimes all together other times completely seperate.
My absolute favorite was an amalgamation of all of them. Who said death had to be easy? All situations are circumstantial and choices in life and even in death could change the outcome.
When a mortal died their soul lingered around their body for up to a year and a day. During that time the soul slowly made it's way towards an Outer Plane with the same alignment of the soul or into the realm of a diety the soul was particularly close to in life, but not necessarily the same alignment, as you can worship a deity closely but not be the same alignment.
True neutrals souls that had no particular closeness to a deity were reincarnated. Which is how I explained the reason for existence. The Prime Mover created all the planes and the deities. The Prime Mover spawned out of pure chaos (or came in from a different universe or what ever you'd like), and curious about this chaos, pretty much made the whole multiverse as an experiment to determine what percentage of the chaos (that was ever present in all creation myths) is lawful, good, evil, and true chaos. So souls are pieces of pure chaos transformed into mortals, (when parents have a baby an actual piece of chaos is what the baby grows out of inside the mommy).
This could explain the purpose of the deities, to poke and prod the mortals into showing the true nature of the chaos that makes them up and bring out what that piece of chaos' true alignment is.
So all true neutral souls are sent back through the ringer over and over until a definite good, evil, lawful or true chaos is determined. And the chaos is nearly infinite, but there is reasonably an end eventually, when all the chaos is divided purely into the four categories. At which point who knows? Prime Mover destroys the multiverse having completed the experiment, or just leaves?
But those souls who are specifically aligned and sent to a specific plane are transformed into agents of those planes (not necessarily agents of the deities who rule that plane). LG could be angels representatives of pure good and pure law. LE Devils. CE Demons. CG I forget what represents this alignment. NG so on and so forth. for all the alignments except TN.
And who knows maybe this is only the first phase of the experiment, what happens once all the chaos is seperated into all these seperate "beings" perhaps a giant war erupts, as designed by the Prime Mover to determine which force is actually the strongest?
And special circumstances can change the out come of a soul's journey. Maybe a Lawful Neutral Wizard made a faustian pact to give him power in life, but once he dies he has to go to the Hells. The specific alignment planes could be a filter that absorbs souls that should not be there and sent back to the chaos to be reincarnated.
Same mechanisms as before, chaos is made into souls and the souls when they die go to the outer plane of the same alignment, where the plane itself absorbs all the law, good, and evil, and the soul is reincarnated over and over until it is pure neutral where it is destroyed (or consumed) by the Prime Mover. Once the conversions are all complete the multiverse will be just lifeless featureless hunks of pure good, evil and law.
Just some ideas, and things I've done before. You have my full permission to take and leave what ever features you don't enjoy and do enjoy, respectively. Happy DMing!
True neutrals souls that had no particular closeness to a deity were reincarnated.
This is particularly interesting and allows for an eastern philosophical aspect to the world.
But those souls who are specifically aligned and sent to a specific plane are transformed into agents of those planes
The more I think about it, the more I like this idea. If my campaign gets far enough, this could be a good path for the cleric character if he dies. But we're only 3 sessions in, and starting at level 1, so that's a ways away.
Funny enough, the party got ambushed in last night's session and the cleric character who prompted this thread ended up getting taken out in the first round. The bad guy got a crossbow shot off in the surprise round, rolling an unconfirmed threat, then did the same in round one where he was first to act. The cleric bled for a couple of rounds before being stabilized, and the party captured one of the bad guys who had a potion of cure light wounds, so it worked out ok. We had a good laugh about it afterwards, and I told him to be careful what he asks the DM for.
Today I sent him the following in email to explain his near-death experience.
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You hear the sound first. Like an axe slamming into a wet tree stump. The wind gets knocked out of you and you look down to see a crossbow bolt sticking out of your belly. How did that get there? Then you start to feel the pain. It starts burning in your stomach and then rolls up through your chest and over your head. The sweat comes quickly to your brow, but you hardly notice as your attention is drawn to another bolt coming straight for you.
I create dungeons on the various planes on a regular basis. Even for low level, just add a portal or two, a few angels to help them travel around the planes and a few evils to chase them down.
Usually, in my worlds, the dead travel to their alignment plane and become petitioners. Petitioners usually petition until the gods who control the planar location they are on/at allow them to become agents of that god or on evil planes (abyss) the petitioners are tortured and then eventually turned into the surround environment forever lost.