The Power of EVIL!
Moderator: Moderators
-
Count Arioch the 28th
- King
- Posts: 6172
- Joined: Fri Mar 07, 2008 7:54 pm
-
Guyr Adamantine
- Master
- Posts: 273
- Joined: Mon Sep 01, 2008 10:05 pm
- Location: Montreal
That is all at once totally awesome, and totally shitty.Count_Arioch_the_28th wrote:I believe the fluff is that if you worship Wee Jas, you are transported to her citadel and tested. If you pass, you are tested in a more exacting manner. And again and again until you fail, at which point you are utterly obliterated. There is no point where you succeed and are rewarded in a conventional manner. Her followers consider that an honor, however.
But you could also think of it this way...
If you are a badass in life, you continue to be a badass in death, and you completely stomp the lower level tests. Then, as you keep passing the tests, you become stronger, and stronger, until you are so powerful, that Clerics of Wee Jas are summoning you because you count as one of the more powerful extraplanar creatures aligned with Wee Jas.
Until you fail one of the tests and cease to exist and Wee Jas laughs.
This part reminds me of the cursed pirates from Pirates of the Caribbean 1.Psychic Robot wrote:From now on, it's only downhill, and the only thing that makes you feel better--makes you feel alive--is hurting other people. And the longer you spend hurting people, the less alive you feel, but the more you want to hurt them for feeling dead on the inside.
At that point, you are just as evil as some of the evil gods, and you probably will supersede their control and become a devil. Or demon. Or thematically and alignment appropriate evil outsider.Elennsar wrote:How much of a price is that for people who enjoy hurting other people, though?
Sucking as being good has this weird double standard. If you REALLY sucked at being good, you go to hell, which is almost no different then sucking at being evil. You go to some evil place, and are tortured/killed or whatever over and over as punishment. For sucking.
If you only kind of sucked at being good, or where just not good enough, you become inanimate. Does this mean... your consciousness just ceases to exist? Or are you stuck forever as a brick in a wall. That sounds alot like hell personally. But I suppose that is the deal. It's a good-aligned "hell" without resorting to feeding more souls into the gaping maw of the Abyss.
Not any, which is why they do evil things and go to an evil after life.Elennsar wrote:How much of a price is that for people who enjoy hurting other people, though?
I mean, there are two positions here:
1) Anyone who chooses evil is wrong for choosing it. Evil is not a valid choice, you might be deluded, or stupid. But Evil is always the wrong choice, for anyone, no matter their motivations.
This is the people who want evil gods to be liars who punish their best servants and good gods to be obscenely nice, and everyone, even babies, get to be real people in Celestia.
2) Evil is a valid choice, at the very least for certain kinds of people. It works out for them better then choosing good, and that's why they choose evil, because they made a rational choice.
The way I see it, you can want D&D to run under version 1 all you want, but you want that only because that's how you hope things are in the real world.
My position is a) D&D is a better game assuming 2), and b) Like most things, the rules for D&D try to have it both ways, but in this case, I think most of them favor option 2) as well.
I would like to echo Kaelik, but go further: position 1 is STUPID. It isn't interesting, fun or cool, it's DUMB. If you claim that a full quarter of your cosmology is delusional, your setting sucks and I don't wanna play in your games.
If you are to make Good, Evil or whatever else COSMIC forces, you have eternal outsiders, and gods too, who are fighting tooth, nail and tentacle for their beliefs. Fighting an eternity for 'being delusional' is something I expect to come from Paizils or WotC idiots, not reasonable people. If your Evil happens to be a cosmic force, supported by a full quarter of your cosmology, it better damn be worth it. Otherwise, it just plainly makes no coherent sense.
To be honest, I believe that the excessive Judeo-Christianity of DnD is at fault here. Despite pretending to be polytheistic, DnD is not such at all, and there is a definite pro-good bias, as well as a whole bunch of totally illogical bullshit throughout 3.5 at least (read Complete Divine, Complete Champion and BoED if you need examples). Heck, the authors themselves don't even know which way they go on which thing, leading to disparities such as the Malconvoker, which is in blatant contradiction to earlier stuff. When you add the fact that the alignment system is fvcked in the ass from poor definitions and trying to be everything to everyone, it just leads to a massive circle-jerk with poor interpretations and stupid RL parallels which frankly don't belong.
So it bears stating again: if you believe option 1 is a good thing, you really, really need to think about why ANYONE would wanna follow 'being deluded' for an eternity. Well, that, and your setting is terrible.
If you are to make Good, Evil or whatever else COSMIC forces, you have eternal outsiders, and gods too, who are fighting tooth, nail and tentacle for their beliefs. Fighting an eternity for 'being delusional' is something I expect to come from Paizils or WotC idiots, not reasonable people. If your Evil happens to be a cosmic force, supported by a full quarter of your cosmology, it better damn be worth it. Otherwise, it just plainly makes no coherent sense.
To be honest, I believe that the excessive Judeo-Christianity of DnD is at fault here. Despite pretending to be polytheistic, DnD is not such at all, and there is a definite pro-good bias, as well as a whole bunch of totally illogical bullshit throughout 3.5 at least (read Complete Divine, Complete Champion and BoED if you need examples). Heck, the authors themselves don't even know which way they go on which thing, leading to disparities such as the Malconvoker, which is in blatant contradiction to earlier stuff. When you add the fact that the alignment system is fvcked in the ass from poor definitions and trying to be everything to everyone, it just leads to a massive circle-jerk with poor interpretations and stupid RL parallels which frankly don't belong.
So it bears stating again: if you believe option 1 is a good thing, you really, really need to think about why ANYONE would wanna follow 'being deluded' for an eternity. Well, that, and your setting is terrible.
In my opinion, the situation you get as a guy who died Evil is one of two things.
1) You go before God. God says you SUCK and bad things happen.
Not very appealing. If God can do that, we wouldn't be dealing with this.
2) You go before the Power you sold your soul to. They use you as hard labor. Maybe if you're really badass you get a "better" deal, but you're still fucked.
Why? Because they're dicks. And because that's what you agreed to. "Give me power NOW and screw the consequences!"
Choosing to be Evil is swearing allegiance to some seriously sick fucks who will do horrible things to do you because that's what they do to lackeys.
So what that winds up meaning is that the guys on top hog the rewards and the guys on bottom compete to get to the top. If they're strong enough, they get to a point when they get some of what they wanted. If they're not strong enough, tough beans.
However, being a lowly devil is still better than you are on average as a mortal. None of this "reborn as a devil so low a peasant can squish you." crap.
And of course depending on your exact contract you might get something worse, but that's why you don't sell your soul to a lawyer.
1) You go before God. God says you SUCK and bad things happen.
Not very appealing. If God can do that, we wouldn't be dealing with this.
2) You go before the Power you sold your soul to. They use you as hard labor. Maybe if you're really badass you get a "better" deal, but you're still fucked.
Why? Because they're dicks. And because that's what you agreed to. "Give me power NOW and screw the consequences!"
Choosing to be Evil is swearing allegiance to some seriously sick fucks who will do horrible things to do you because that's what they do to lackeys.
So what that winds up meaning is that the guys on top hog the rewards and the guys on bottom compete to get to the top. If they're strong enough, they get to a point when they get some of what they wanted. If they're not strong enough, tough beans.
However, being a lowly devil is still better than you are on average as a mortal. None of this "reborn as a devil so low a peasant can squish you." crap.
And of course depending on your exact contract you might get something worse, but that's why you don't sell your soul to a lawyer.
Trust in the Emperor, but always check your ammunition.
There are a lot of problems with that as it relates to D&D.Elennsar wrote:In my opinion, the situation you get as a guy who died Evil is one of two things.
1) You go before God. God says you SUCK and bad things happen.
Not very appealing. If God can do that, we wouldn't be dealing with this.
2) You go before the Power you sold your soul to. They use you as hard labor. Maybe if you're really badass you get a "better" deal, but you're still fucked.
Why? Because they're dicks. And because that's what you agreed to. "Give me power NOW and screw the consequences!"
Choosing to be Evil is swearing allegiance to some seriously sick fucks who will do horrible things to do you because that's what they do to lackeys.
So what that winds up meaning is that the guys on top hog the rewards and the guys on bottom compete to get to the top. If they're strong enough, they get to a point when they get some of what they wanted. If they're not strong enough, tough beans.
However, being a lowly devil is still better than you are on average as a mortal. None of this "reborn as a devil so low a peasant can squish you." crap.
And of course depending on your exact contract you might get something worse, but that's why you don't sell your soul to a lawyer.
1) That makes anyone who chooses evil stupid.
2) You aren't selling your soul to anyone, you don't sell your soul to Vecna, you do shit cause you think undead are cool.
3) Being Evil doesn't mean not rewarding your good followers. Seriously, you've never read an evil overlord list. You don't have to be an idiot.
4) Being evil in no way represents gaing more power in the short term. Neutral is more power in the short term because you can do anything, Evil means being just as powerful as good, but with different motivations and goals.
No one said that this was how D&D works, its my preference on how to set up the damn thing.
Choosing to be evil should be stupid. You just chose to say "Hey? Guy who kills people for reporting bad news? I want to be your bitch."
Since you're already liking undead, at least this way you might get something out of it. And if you don't like undead at all, you shouldn't want to start serving Vecna whatever he offers (otherwise we get Good is stupid).
And Neutral being even an option in a system meant to have Good-Evil in any vaguely black and white way is stupid design.
Choosing to be evil should be stupid. You just chose to say "Hey? Guy who kills people for reporting bad news? I want to be your bitch."
Since you're already liking undead, at least this way you might get something out of it. And if you don't like undead at all, you shouldn't want to start serving Vecna whatever he offers (otherwise we get Good is stupid).
And Neutral being even an option in a system meant to have Good-Evil in any vaguely black and white way is stupid design.
Trust in the Emperor, but always check your ammunition.
Except that evil being stupid makes for a terrible game.Elennsar wrote:No one said that this was how D&D works, its my preference on how to set up the damn thing.
Choosing to be evil should be stupid. You just chose to say "Hey? Guy who kills people for reporting bad news? I want to be your bitch."
Since you're already liking undead, at least this way you might get something out of it. And if you don't like undead at all, you shouldn't want to start serving Vecna whatever he offers (otherwise we get Good is stupid).
And Neutral being even an option in a system meant to have Good-Evil in any vaguely black and white way is stupid design.
And please explain how being good is stupid. You seriously have no reason for that statement.
It has no impact on the game that the afterlife is unrewarding. Hell, there's not much impact on the game if there is no afterlife.
You might get a terrible setting, as Sinister said, but the game is unimpacted by the afterlife.
In game...well, if you want evil PCs as much as good PCs, then having evil be unappealing in life is probably not a good thing, but having the game not do that is as valid as the game not having magic users.
As for good being stupid:
"You lose nothing by joining me, since I reward my servants as well as your god rewards his. In fact, I'll give you a bonus. And its not that being "moral" is worth anything since there's a dozen definitions and how do you know that your god is right?"
So basically you agree to accept a hard life with less benefits in exchange for...being able to claim that you were a good person based on something that makes no sense ("Because this 1st level spell which is easily fooled or blocked told me so." is crap.)?
You might want Good to suffer in vain (or at least have nothing happen that benefits anyone more from them suffering than if they didn't) and Evil and Good to get an equivalantly enjoyable afterlife, but its not appealing to me.
Personally, the tradeoff is this.
Good: Sacrifices now, better world maybe, hopefully a good afterlife.
Evil: Power at any price! And none of this silly morality crap. Worse world for everyone (else?). Afterlife not likely to be so nice.
If everyone gives an equally good afterlife, there's no reason to try and uphold either good behavior and work hard (and get the rewards for hard work) or to not do so.
You're best off finding the God Who Rewards The Behavior You'd Prefer Doing.
And a setting where the deities who emphasis having fun are the most influential and the most desirable to follow is not a setting where the Perfect Knight has any place. Since nothing benefits from that kind of behavior enough to be worth the sacrifices of it.
You might get a terrible setting, as Sinister said, but the game is unimpacted by the afterlife.
In game...well, if you want evil PCs as much as good PCs, then having evil be unappealing in life is probably not a good thing, but having the game not do that is as valid as the game not having magic users.
As for good being stupid:
"You lose nothing by joining me, since I reward my servants as well as your god rewards his. In fact, I'll give you a bonus. And its not that being "moral" is worth anything since there's a dozen definitions and how do you know that your god is right?"
So basically you agree to accept a hard life with less benefits in exchange for...being able to claim that you were a good person based on something that makes no sense ("Because this 1st level spell which is easily fooled or blocked told me so." is crap.)?
You might want Good to suffer in vain (or at least have nothing happen that benefits anyone more from them suffering than if they didn't) and Evil and Good to get an equivalantly enjoyable afterlife, but its not appealing to me.
Personally, the tradeoff is this.
Good: Sacrifices now, better world maybe, hopefully a good afterlife.
Evil: Power at any price! And none of this silly morality crap. Worse world for everyone (else?). Afterlife not likely to be so nice.
If everyone gives an equally good afterlife, there's no reason to try and uphold either good behavior and work hard (and get the rewards for hard work) or to not do so.
You're best off finding the God Who Rewards The Behavior You'd Prefer Doing.
And a setting where the deities who emphasis having fun are the most influential and the most desirable to follow is not a setting where the Perfect Knight has any place. Since nothing benefits from that kind of behavior enough to be worth the sacrifices of it.
Last edited by Elennsar on Fri Dec 19, 2008 2:59 am, edited 1 time in total.
Trust in the Emperor, but always check your ammunition.
Except that half the world being naturally stupid is bad for the game.
And no, Good doesn't sacrifice anything. What possible bonus does being evil grant? This is you applying your wishes to everything again. Good does not involve sacrifice or hard work or anything like that.
It's good to save your girlfriend and then go screw her brains out, it's evil to kidnap some lady and screw her brains out. In both versions you had to overcome a challenge to get some, but that doesn't mean the evil took less work to get there.
And no, Good doesn't sacrifice anything. What possible bonus does being evil grant? This is you applying your wishes to everything again. Good does not involve sacrifice or hard work or anything like that.
It's good to save your girlfriend and then go screw her brains out, it's evil to kidnap some lady and screw her brains out. In both versions you had to overcome a challenge to get some, but that doesn't mean the evil took less work to get there.
It works pretty well for any game set on Earth that human nature is naturally prone to short sighted behavior.
As for good vs. evil: What part of "This is how D&D defines it." was in any definition that I gave any indication of thinking was sound?
As for good vs. evil: What part of "This is how D&D defines it." was in any definition that I gave any indication of thinking was sound?
Trust in the Emperor, but always check your ammunition.
Good sacrifices options (like torture and betrayal and such) in exchange for cooperation, trust, and long-term power.
Evil sacrifices trust in exchange for short-term power and options like torture and demon-summoning and such.
I need to remember that 99% of the people in D&D land don't know for a fact what the afterlife is like (or shouldn't - 9th-level clerics have better things to do than run tours to Heaven, even if their deity is OK with that). This makes the "evil gods who screw you over" much more palatable. Also the "you only get rewarded for success" part - a paladin who tries and fails (but does not fall) may get another chance; a blackguard...not so much.
Regarding switching sides - betrayal works great for good-to-evil, since most fallen heroes fall as part of a grand betrayal. Redemption will be harder - but then, it should be, as Good has higher standards and less desire to promote betrayal.
New question: What about people who "worship" a Good deity but aren't good people - say, a guy who pays lip service to Pelor and doesn't rape, torture or murder, but lies and cheats when he can get away with it? What do we think should happen to them?
Evil sacrifices trust in exchange for short-term power and options like torture and demon-summoning and such.
I need to remember that 99% of the people in D&D land don't know for a fact what the afterlife is like (or shouldn't - 9th-level clerics have better things to do than run tours to Heaven, even if their deity is OK with that). This makes the "evil gods who screw you over" much more palatable. Also the "you only get rewarded for success" part - a paladin who tries and fails (but does not fall) may get another chance; a blackguard...not so much.
Regarding switching sides - betrayal works great for good-to-evil, since most fallen heroes fall as part of a grand betrayal. Redemption will be harder - but then, it should be, as Good has higher standards and less desire to promote betrayal.
New question: What about people who "worship" a Good deity but aren't good people - say, a guy who pays lip service to Pelor and doesn't rape, torture or murder, but lies and cheats when he can get away with it? What do we think should happen to them?
MartinHarper wrote:Babies are difficult to acquire in comparison to other sources of nutrition.
Divine (through the hands of the God, his angels, or his mortal servants) punishment.
Depending on how hard it is to tell whether or not someone has been up to no good, this could be fine.
In a situation where the Gods are omniscient or close enough, we don't have it happen.
As best as I can tell, I would say this.
No one expects the Spanish Inquisition!
How that works is hard to say. But basically, if you screw around and aren't good (but aren't Evil), you have the people who examine these things do one of two things:
Make you repent and atone and stop doing that.
Kick you out.
Beyond that, after death, you go to purgatory (or get reincarnated or whatever...basically you have to demonstrate you're a pure soul before you get the rewards for the faithful.)
So a person who can't/won't live up to Pelor's dictates will not be considered "of the faithful" whether they pay lip service or not, but barring any divine intervention, this will only apply for magic that makes a distinction (you might still be an "ally" but "followers of the same deity as the cleric" doesn't apply in any meaningful sense) or social/material consequences (a follower of Pelor might be able to ask for free healing at any temple of Pelor at any time, but someone who is a lip service guy and known as such won't be given that benefit).
Naturally, this assumes that you're still good enough to not get the consequences for being evil.
Depending on how hard it is to tell whether or not someone has been up to no good, this could be fine.
In a situation where the Gods are omniscient or close enough, we don't have it happen.
As best as I can tell, I would say this.
No one expects the Spanish Inquisition!
How that works is hard to say. But basically, if you screw around and aren't good (but aren't Evil), you have the people who examine these things do one of two things:
Make you repent and atone and stop doing that.
Kick you out.
Beyond that, after death, you go to purgatory (or get reincarnated or whatever...basically you have to demonstrate you're a pure soul before you get the rewards for the faithful.)
So a person who can't/won't live up to Pelor's dictates will not be considered "of the faithful" whether they pay lip service or not, but barring any divine intervention, this will only apply for magic that makes a distinction (you might still be an "ally" but "followers of the same deity as the cleric" doesn't apply in any meaningful sense) or social/material consequences (a follower of Pelor might be able to ask for free healing at any temple of Pelor at any time, but someone who is a lip service guy and known as such won't be given that benefit).
Naturally, this assumes that you're still good enough to not get the consequences for being evil.
Last edited by Elennsar on Fri Dec 19, 2008 4:42 am, edited 1 time in total.
Trust in the Emperor, but always check your ammunition.
Ah, so we agree on something. Next thing. Why is someone evil being judged by Pelor? Only Yahweh judges both good and evil. In D&D you are judged only by the one you worship (or the closest alignment estimation). Yahweh (thanks for the spelling) has no place in D&D.Elennsar wrote:Yahweh, I believe. At least that's the closest English equivalant to what the word that comes out as Jehovah.
The truth is, no existing concept fits D&D because D&D is its own concept. And crap, but that's another problem.
Well, if you say "I follow Vecna." you go to Vecna's afterlife.
Where Vecna figures out how well you followed him or not.
The guy being judged by Pelor is the half-assed Pelorite Talisman mentioned.
Personally, I would prefer that one of the Good gods -does- weigh and judge souls (or the good gods in agreement), because if you're weighed by your god, again we get the appeal of following the God Who Rewards What I Want To Do.
And that doesn't encourage any devotion to Good or Evil. Even if you want to fight evil, you're better off finding the God Who Rewards What I Want To Do and using the fact domain influences very little.
Where Vecna figures out how well you followed him or not.
The guy being judged by Pelor is the half-assed Pelorite Talisman mentioned.
Personally, I would prefer that one of the Good gods -does- weigh and judge souls (or the good gods in agreement), because if you're weighed by your god, again we get the appeal of following the God Who Rewards What I Want To Do.
And that doesn't encourage any devotion to Good or Evil. Even if you want to fight evil, you're better off finding the God Who Rewards What I Want To Do and using the fact domain influences very little.
Trust in the Emperor, but always check your ammunition.
Elennsar wrote:Well, if you say "I follow Vecna." you go to Vecna's afterlife.
Where Vecna figures out how well you followed him or not.
The guy being judged by Pelor is the half-assed Pelorite Talisman mentioned.
Personally, I would prefer that one of the Good gods -does- weigh and judge souls (or the good gods in agreement), because if you're weighed by your god, again we get the appeal of following the God Who Rewards What I Want To Do.
And that doesn't encourage any devotion to Good or Evil. Even if you want to fight evil, you're better off finding the God Who Rewards What I Want To Do and using the fact domain influences very little.
What you are talking about leads to polytheism and while I have no problem with D&D finally showing a good polytheistic model, it probably wouldn't work well because what you are asking about is to have several gods or a god judge all good people/evil people but they can't be worshipped by the same group.
For example if Pelor handled the good guys and lolth handled the bad guys, we see some severe disparity because I as a person woudl wonder why I shouldn't worship to both Pelor and Fharlagn or lolth and Vecna.
There's no reason this can't work but you ahve to see all the angles of it, is all.
Ancient History wrote:We were working on Street Magic, and Frank asked me if a houngan had run over my dog.
Well, I don't mind at all that you'd worship two seperate gods. "Worship ONLY ME!" does not appeal unless its "God" or "antiGod".
Naturally, if you were really really fond of Pelor and wanted to devote yourself wholeheartedly to him, you could, but praying to Fharlagn before traveling and Heironeous before battle and St. Cuthbert to grant you wisdom before a trial...
I don't see a problem.
Naturally, if you were really really fond of Pelor and wanted to devote yourself wholeheartedly to him, you could, but praying to Fharlagn before traveling and Heironeous before battle and St. Cuthbert to grant you wisdom before a trial...
I don't see a problem.
Trust in the Emperor, but always check your ammunition.
Yes, the example I went with is someone who worships Pelor as much as they worship anyone (claims to worship Pelor, goes to pelorite church once in a while, doesn't actively worship anyone else), and who isn't evil enough to be counted as "Evil," but who doesn't measure up to True Pelorite standards.
I can see being judged by:
1) The deity you worship (or claim to - steal and lie in Pelor's name and you're in trouble);
or
2) A third-party "Judge God" (probably N or LN) who weighs each soul, regardless of who the soul claims to follow, then sends it on to its proper plane. So our undevout Pelorite might get sent somewhere other than Pelor's realm based on the true nature of the soul.
Depending on the discretion of the Judge God, and whether other gods can argue with him, this might be a great way for fiends to grab mortal souls - "Sign on with me and avoid that weighed-against-a-feather crap - I can guarantee you a private mansion full of beautiful, naked drow prostitutes*."
Of course, this presumes that a mortal can indeed direct the final destination of their soul with a little supernatural help.
*The prostitutes, while beautiful, naked, and drow, are all male sadists. Note that the contract does not say they're charmed or controlled in any way.
I can see being judged by:
1) The deity you worship (or claim to - steal and lie in Pelor's name and you're in trouble);
or
2) A third-party "Judge God" (probably N or LN) who weighs each soul, regardless of who the soul claims to follow, then sends it on to its proper plane. So our undevout Pelorite might get sent somewhere other than Pelor's realm based on the true nature of the soul.
Depending on the discretion of the Judge God, and whether other gods can argue with him, this might be a great way for fiends to grab mortal souls - "Sign on with me and avoid that weighed-against-a-feather crap - I can guarantee you a private mansion full of beautiful, naked drow prostitutes*."
Of course, this presumes that a mortal can indeed direct the final destination of their soul with a little supernatural help.
*The prostitutes, while beautiful, naked, and drow, are all male sadists. Note that the contract does not say they're charmed or controlled in any way.
MartinHarper wrote:Babies are difficult to acquire in comparison to other sources of nutrition.
Except... with the sole exception of Eberron, this isn't true. (Well, its sort of vaguely true of Greyhawk, since the gods there don't interact with lowbies). But FR and DL? Fuck, the gods there come down and bother people about the afterlife all the damn time (and their personal problems, personal quirks, and venereal diseases...) You just can't get away from the bastards.Talisman wrote: I need to remember that 99% of the people in D&D land don't know for a fact what the afterlife is like (or shouldn't - 9th-level clerics have better things to do than run tours to Heaven, even if their deity is OK with that). This makes the "evil gods who screw you over" much more palatable. Also the "you only get rewarded for success" part - a paladin who tries and fails (but does not fall) may get another chance; a blackguard...not so much.
They're so involved that the clerics pretty much have to give the peasants an accurate view of the afterlife. If they don't the gods come down and bitchslap them. Or drop mountains on the general area.
And thinking about it, in Eberron, its even worse, since everyone is under the impression that death = being trapped in a grey, boring demiplane with no hope of escape for all eternity. The afterlife actively sucks and *anything* you can do to escape it is almost certainly going to be better. (Which, of course, is a major issue that the setting doesn't actually address. If you have half a brain in Eberron, immortality, undeath or demonic pacts should be priority #1 for everybody, because they *know* the default afterlife sucks, no matter how good (or evil) they are).
I like this idea. For everyone that doesn't stand out enough to warrant attention from their god's outsider servants(or the deity themselves) ends up getting filed away to where they belong based on the decisions of what amounts to a big cosmic soul clerk. I'm totally stealing that for my home game.Talisman wrote:2) A third-party "Judge God" (probably N or LN) who weighs each soul, regardless of who the soul claims to follow, then sends it on to its proper plane. So our undevout Pelorite might get sent somewhere other than Pelor's realm based on the true nature of the soul.