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D & D cosmology and dead deities

Discussion in 'Dungeons & Dragons + Other RPGs' started by Beren, Mar 25, 2003.

  1. Beren

    Beren Lovesick and Lonely Wanderer Staff Member ★ SPS Account Holder Resourceful Adored Veteran Pillars of Eternity SP Immortalizer (for helping immortalize Sorcerer's Place in the game!) New Server Contributor [2012] (for helping Sorcerer's Place lease a new, more powerful server!) Torment: Tides of Numenera SP Immortalizer (for helping immortalize Sorcerer's Place in the game!)

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    I've read from a few D&D sources that the bodies of dead gods float around endlessly in the Astral Plane. Is that just it for them? Do their souls or spirits go on to some sort of afterlife? Would anybody know what kind of afterlife a dead deity goes to, if at all, while his or her physical remains float around in the astral plane?

    Well, the reason I'm asking goes back to one of my old time favorite series, the Bard's Tale trilogy. In BT3, we have this goddess of love and beauty named Alliria. To me, she seemed to combine aspects of both Aphrodite and Galadriel. Tragically, the god of evil, named Tarjan, slowly tortured her to death right in front of her husband, named Cyanis. Anytime I play through the BT series, it's a truly gut-wrenching moment for me.

    So anyway, at www.columbia.edu/~awe3, we have this website that makes it own adaptation of the Bard's Tale mythos to D&D 2nd ed rules. As it turns out, Alliria stays dead, "currently adrift the Astral Plane". Personally, I would like to think that a woman who combined both beauty and virtue deserved a better fate than to be floating around forever in the astral plane, especially considering the horrific manner of her death. I would like to think her spirit made its way to a fitting afterlife, like Arvandor (with the ever present prospect of an eventual revival).

    Well anyway, if anyone could enlighten me on this detail of D&D cosmology, that would be great.
     
    Beren, Mar 25, 2003
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  2. chevalier

    chevalier Knight of Everfull Chalice ★ SPS Account Holder Veteran

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    From what I know they are somehow suspended but still able to provide spells to a small number of clerics and paladins. Those do their best to have the deity resurrected. Unless some more powerful deity raises the dead one that would probably require a great number of new worshippers or another cumulation of force. However, I don't know how that is possible that they sometimes assume avatar forms and talk to their followers. Perhaps some semi-unconscious action like supplying the spells, but that's only a guess.
     
    chevalier, Mar 25, 2003
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  3. Taluntain

    Taluntain Resident Alpha and Omega Staff Member ★ SPS Account Holder Resourceful Adored Veteran Pillars of Eternity SP Immortalizer (for helping immortalize Sorcerer's Place in the game!) New Server Contributor [2012] (for helping Sorcerer's Place lease a new, more powerful server!) Torment: Tides of Numenera SP Immortalizer (for helping immortalize Sorcerer's Place in the game!) BoM XenForo Migration Contributor [2015] (for helping support the migration to new forum software!)

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    And from what I know, they're not able to provide spells any more once they die. (Exceptions are storing some of their power in certain containers before they die and giving them to their most faithful.) A good FR novel read on this is the Finder's Bane book which details the quest of a priestess of Bane to resurrect him. It has all the details about this topic. You can get it from SP, http://www.sorcerers.net/Books/index_fr2.php - bottom of the page.
     
    Last edited: Dec 31, 2017
    Taluntain, Mar 25, 2003
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  4. chevalier

    chevalier Knight of Everfull Chalice ★ SPS Account Holder Veteran

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    That was in the Deities & Demigods - but that's for 3E. Comparable to Amaunator's appearance in BG2 where he was dead but in fact still able to maintain a small number of priesthood.
     
    chevalier, Mar 25, 2003
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  5. Taluntain

    Taluntain Resident Alpha and Omega Staff Member ★ SPS Account Holder Resourceful Adored Veteran Pillars of Eternity SP Immortalizer (for helping immortalize Sorcerer's Place in the game!) New Server Contributor [2012] (for helping Sorcerer's Place lease a new, more powerful server!) Torment: Tides of Numenera SP Immortalizer (for helping immortalize Sorcerer's Place in the game!) BoM XenForo Migration Contributor [2015] (for helping support the migration to new forum software!)

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    [​IMG] Uh, what priesthood? And where did it say he actually granted them any spells?
     
    Taluntain, Mar 25, 2003
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  6. chevalier

    chevalier Knight of Everfull Chalice ★ SPS Account Holder Veteran

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    Somehow yes, but I was truly amazed. However, deities and demigods say they still give spells and some power - semi-consciously, like the priests were bound to them and drew the power from them themselves - without any conscious act on the deity's side. Still, the deity preserves some level of consciousness %/
     
    chevalier, Mar 25, 2003
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  7. Beren

    Beren Lovesick and Lonely Wanderer Staff Member ★ SPS Account Holder Resourceful Adored Veteran Pillars of Eternity SP Immortalizer (for helping immortalize Sorcerer's Place in the game!) New Server Contributor [2012] (for helping Sorcerer's Place lease a new, more powerful server!) Torment: Tides of Numenera SP Immortalizer (for helping immortalize Sorcerer's Place in the game!)

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    Thanks for the reference Tal.

    There's a bookstore I know that has just about everything D&D. If the place doesn't have it, then I will get it through SP.
     
    Beren, Mar 26, 2003
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