Let's Talk About the Worship of Deities and Afterlife

[Ogre Time Yay]

Okay, so every now and again I like to toss in a topic on here and get a conversation started amongst people. This also helps me in the long run because I love doing research on these kinds of things and figuring out as much as I can from either already written information, or from others in general.

The topic for today:
In Toril, is it common for people to worship multiple deities?
If they worship multiple deities, which Celestial or Fiendish afterlife do they go to?
Is it possible for the individual to travel between afterlife dominions if they worship maybe two or three gods?
Can a worshiper of Vandria of the Elven Pantheon and Tyr of the Human Pantheon travel between Arvandor and Celestia, or can they only pick one and stay in one?
A shorter version of that question could be, "How does the World Tree of Toril work?"


*Rings the bell*

[Edge]

Feb 2, 2017 14:41:27 GMT -5 Ogre Time Yay said:

In Toril, is it common for people to worship multiple deities?

Yes and no. Commonly people give reverence to multiple deities regularly. But only one deity can be your actual Patron deity.

If they worship multiple deities, which Celestial or Fiendish afterlife do they go to?

The one belonging to their Patron. If you try to have multiple Patrons, you're judged False and put in the Wall.

Is it possible for the individual to travel between afterlife dominions if they worship maybe two or three gods?

As a planeswalker? Yes, easily, if you don't anger the locals. After death, no you stay in your Patron's realm until you're no longer a Petitioner. Then you get remade into a fitting local Outsider and work for your Patron as needed.

[Ogre Time Yay]

That about summarizes everything, although it raises a new question.

What if someone was a follower of Selune and Sehanine, with say Sehanine as the Patron deity.
Since they are said to have realms connecting to each others, with one in Arvandor and the other at the Gate of the Moon (unless I mistook the information I looked up), would the follower of Sehanine in the afterlife be able to go between the two dominions, or is there a price/punishment for doing so?

[Eredruie]

What Edge said.

It's really common for people to 'pay gods their dues', or respects, by perhaps thanking them where appropriate or dropping a small offering at a shrine/temple. For example, thanking Chauntea for a bountiful harvest in your village, even if your personal patron is Lathander, or perhaps making a donation with the Tymorans if you recently had a rush of good luck, even though your heart belongs to Selune. Similarly, a lot of people will also do the same for evil gods at times, for example they may invoke Beshaba at events like weddings and naming ceremonies, because if you don't 'invite' her but you do her sister, she apparently sends bad luck down on you! (This reads contrary to a lot of superstition about mentioning a god and getting their attention, but the Beshaba example is mentioned in the lore iirc) or praying to Shar for comfort upon a bereavement (because not all common folk have read the sourcebooks!). So yeah, there's a lot of grey from the common folk who simply want to get by, even if they don't actively worship 'evil' deities.

(disclaimer: this is my interpretation of the lore)

[FaeFae]

Petitioners lose knowledge of their former lives and are bound to the realm in which they manifest with their patron deity. They would not have the sense of self or ability to travel between other realms as a petitioner.

It's theorized that since fiends are petitioners who have climbed the hierarchy / evolved, that their dabbling in goodness at times is a product of their mortal life. Again, there's no memories.

[Ogre Time Yay]

Thanks folks! This helps me have a better understanding of the whole process.

[Arya]

I can say with the elves and likely with a number of other 'alien' races and pantheons (e.g., Mulhorandi, or even panentheistic/henotheistic Adama faith of Durpar), they definitely do worship multiple gods. However, as per the Forgotten Realms Cosmology, they need a patron to not be considered among the False or the Faithless. In truth, not really a hard thing to do if one keeps within the same Pantheon, as all the deities (at least in this case) have a home in generally one plane to some capacity - some deities staying in this plane more than others.

Forgotten Realms' 2nd Edition Demihuman Deities (or was it Deities & Demigods 2nd edition? Nonetheless, not all material applies if 3.5 directly overrides)... goes into some groups (e.g., elves or even Mulhorandi) having a belief in reincarnation in some subcultures. It is not unusual for an elf or similar races of similar beliefs to, under some cosmic compulsion or obligation, reincarnate as, say, Treant or Nymph for the purpose of prolonging their life for a specific purpose. With concepts such as thiramin (soulmate) and the elven/fey bonds, among other things, this is not necessarily surprising. Other cultures also may have something established where their deities mandate or sanction becoming a sort of ghost warrior or guardian of that particular culture's dead (Osirian mummies, for instance). However, even in these strange cases, they are not going straight to the Fugue Plane and then into the life after. This would be a case where, in that tenday bracket Kelemvor/Fugue Plane allows for patron deities to come and do what they need (e.g., judge and snag/discard soul), for that deity to arrive and decide the fate of the soul once it is claimed from the Fugue Plane (this makes most sense, otherwise it would be a major contradiction).

You will not see mention of these things in mainstream materials because the majority of corebooks assume things from a Faerunian dominant world and does not detail the nuances of alien pantheons. However, regardless of this fact, all powers with influence in Faerun must respect the law of the Fugue Plane, which has existed for millennia and transferred powers over time. So no matter subculture belief systems, all deities have the whole tenday to claim and do whatever to the soul before Kelemvor/whoeverinpower does what he wants, or determines the soul False or Faithless. Sometimes, demons invade the Fugue Plane and steal souls, while devils are allowed to so long as they respect Kelemvor's domain actually negotiate with a soul for a different afterlife than that Kelemvor decides.  

Funny enough, to digress a little on lore regarding the topic, Kelemvor originally tried to do away with the Wall of the Faithless, wanting to be a more benevolent (if not goodly) god of death. It disrupted the balance and a massive number of souls wanted to worship him, so to keep the balance he had to reinstate it. Such as the price of being a lord of the dead when Ao's vision of balance takes precedence.

Other pantheons may have deities doing their own thing with their worshipers, but ultimately, the bottom line is you are best to assume you can only go to one afterlife when your character dies regardless of the other deities - including allied deities (such as Selune and Sehanine as you pointed out). When the petitioner phase passes, well, anything is possible.

The question is whether the soul would remember enough at that point to actually act on original desires (if it was to visit different planes in the afterlife).

Hope this helps some. :-) I had to read on the cosmology a bit to make sense of some plots I had ran and am in the process of finishing. It was important for the purpose of not breaking Fugue Plane laws. 

Sincerely,
Arya

[Ogre Time Yay]

That actually helps alot! Thanks for that!

[lurkerabove]

As for the question, "How does the world tree work?" That truly depends on what the cosmology of the particular server is. A majority of the NWN servers I've played on still adhere to the 1st and 2nd edition "Great Wheel" cosmology, even though NWN is set in 3rd edition.

IMO it makes more sense to keep it that way, since to concede other primes of existence, and even things like planeswalkers, Sigil, the Outlands/Concordant Opposition, and other things that PCs can be overheard talking about it the market, you have to accept the theory of Great Wheel cosmology.

The great wheel is essentially just that: a wheel of the planes from neutral good at the top, neutral evil at the bottom, law and chaos on either side, and all the planes of alignments in between, concordant opposition in the midddle, and Sigil's little discworld in the epicenter. The World Tree model conflicts with this, because it focuses on divine domains, rather than planes of alignment, and precludes the existence of other, non-Faerunian gods, and thus conflicts with the theory of one cosmos, with many primes and all the gods of those primes within it.

[FaeFae]

Feb 23, 2017 3:59:37 GMT -5 lurkerabove said:

As for the question, "How does the world tree work?" That truly depends on what the cosmology of the particular server is. A majority of the NWN servers I've played on still adhere to the 1st and 2nd edition "Great Wheel" cosmology, even though NWN is set in 3rd edition.

IMO it makes more sense to keep it that way, since to concede other primes of existence, and even things like planeswalkers, Sigil, the Outlands/Concordant Opposition, and other things that PCs can be overheard talking about it the market, you have to accept the theory of Great Wheel cosmology.

The great wheel is essentially just that: a wheel of the planes from neutral good at the top, neutral evil at the bottom, law and chaos on either side, and all the planes of alignments in between, concordant opposition in the midddle, and Sigil's little discworld in the epicenter. The World Tree model conflicts with this, because it focuses on divine domains, rather than planes of alignment, and precludes the existence of other, non-Faerunian gods, and thus conflicts with the theory of one cosmos, with many primes and all the gods of those primes within it.

Fire Wraith has your back on this one. Here's the canon for Cormyr and the Dalelands proper: forums.cormyrdalelands.com/index.php?topic=3266

[Garage Trashcan]

Feb 23, 2017 6:40:54 GMT -5 FaeFae said:

Feb 23, 2017 3:59:37 GMT -5 lurkerabove said:

As for the question, "How does the world tree work?" That truly depends on what the cosmology of the particular server is. A majority of the NWN servers I've played on still adhere to the 1st and 2nd edition "Great Wheel" cosmology, even though NWN is set in 3rd edition.

IMO it makes more sense to keep it that way, since to concede other primes of existence, and even things like planeswalkers, Sigil, the Outlands/Concordant Opposition, and other things that PCs can be overheard talking about it the market, you have to accept the theory of Great Wheel cosmology.

The great wheel is essentially just that: a wheel of the planes from neutral good at the top, neutral evil at the bottom, law and chaos on either side, and all the planes of alignments in between, concordant opposition in the midddle, and Sigil's little discworld in the epicenter. The World Tree model conflicts with this, because it focuses on divine domains, rather than planes of alignment, and precludes the existence of other, non-Faerunian gods, and thus conflicts with the theory of one cosmos, with many primes and all the gods of those primes within it.

Fire Wraith has your back on this one. Here's the canon for Cormyr and the Dalelands proper: forums.cormyrdalelands.com/index.php?topic=3266

They also went back to the Great Wheel in 5th Ed, which I was grateful for.