Eric Greenhilt

[veti]

Which is why they have to send someone to collect her, right? Because she's so eager to go back?

I never said she was "eager to go back". But she's also, quite clearly, not "eager" to remain in V's splice either, which suggests that she's not particularly afraid of going back.

Woohoo, neverending and meaningless war in the name of the guy who got you killed in the first place. While the good guys get to simply rest and have fun with their families. I'm sure that won't get old at all!

I wonder - what happens to the goblins who don't want to wage war in the Dark One's name forever? Is Right-Eye somewhere in that horde, Goblin Soldier #37,769B? Are his wife and son there?

You might as well ask about those dwarves who don't like beer. There must be some.

We don't know about the feelings of anyone else in that army. For all we know, they're all enthusiastic volunteers. Or they might be pressed conscripts - we've been told nothing about them. I'm talking about the evidence of what we have been told, or shown.

As for your actual question - the fact that you can be impious at all/just want to be left alone by the gods, and still get all the same rewards as the folks who have been devoutly religious their entire lives, tells me that the gods are not the arbiters in this particular cosmology.

Whoa, vast non-sequitur there. You're assuming that all the gods, good, evil, lawful and chaotic alike, are so vain that "worship" is the one thing they care about enough to make it the overriding priority in determining an afterlife.

What if some of them actually believe in 'justice'? Or even, in simply not having their respective boats rocked, by putting people in places where they won't fit in?

[Psyren]

given the number of times gods have more or less literally done that and gotten away with it, im going to say that no, he wouldn't.

And those gods had "peace" and "pacifism" in their portfolio when they did, I take it?

(Heh, alliteration.)

I never said she was "eager to go back". But she's also, quite clearly, not "eager" to remain in V's splice either, which suggests that she's not particularly afraid of going back.

But she's not heading back at all - she is running amok and has to be collected. Most likely she is looking for a new host; either way, she is not in any kind of hurry to go back.

Also, how does not remaining in V's splice indicate lack of fear of going back? It's pretty clear that if she had stuck around there, they would have taken her back eventually - the splice was temporary by design.

You might as well ask about those dwarves who don't like beer. There must be some.

And Thor... drowns you in it for eternity? Hooks you up to an IV? Forces it down their throats? How is this relevant?

We don't know about the feelings of anyone else in that army. For all we know, they're all enthusiastic volunteers. Or they might be pressed conscripts - we've been told nothing about them. I'm talking about the evidence of what we have been told, or shown.

You didn't say anything about them at all. You simply said "There's also Jirix" and attached a link.

Whoa, vast non-sequitur there. You're assuming that all the gods, good, evil, lawful and chaotic alike, are so vain that "worship" is the one thing they care about enough to make it the overriding priority in determining an afterlife.

I'm pretty sure I said the exact opposite of that, actually.

[Vinyadan]

Whoa, vast non-sequitur there. You're assuming that all the gods, good, evil, lawful and chaotic alike, are so vain that "worship" is the one thing they care about enough to make it the overriding priority in determining an afterlife.

Just for clarity, the Deva who handed the verdict to Roy said that his lack of piety didn't really matter.

[Kish]

Being able to write something and not writing it can have a number of explanations, not just the single one you have come up with. As it is, unless he says specifically "yes, Hell has a dumpster/inbox/daycare where they toss all baby petitioners" I don't think it's unreasonable to assume he was specifically talking about the babies of non-evil parents.

You don't really need to tell me that you see a reason not to believe he meant everything he said. I got that a long time ago.

You mean The Book?

You're still generalizing the Lawful Good afterlife to the entire cosmology. Yes, the deva and the rules she follow both manifestly care about fairness. Do you wish to explicitly, not just implicitly, commit yourself to the position that so does whatever her counterpart at the Nine Hells is?

Well for starters, I'm not sure how you could call Ao "unjust" in that example.

A goddess who didn't do anything wrong getting obliterated, and Ao's sole response is to chastise the people who think this is in some way a bad thing (notably and prominently including the God of Justice, who continued to talk about how the Lord of Murder would pay for that crime after Ao had left)....As someone once said to me, don't you think that's a bit harsh?

If a deity exists to champion/monitor a thing, and they do that thing, they're pretty much doing their job. But if, say, Eldath grabbed a battleaxe and went on a killing spree, you can probably imagine Ao would either reclassify her or revoke her status entirely.

Right, see? Fairness doesn't matter. What matters is only that the people who are supposed to be mass murderers do the mass murdering. The problem with innocent people being axe-murdered isn't INNOCENT PEOPLE and BLOOD and PAIN and DEATH--it's that the axe-murdering is being done by the Goddess of Peace, and not Talos.

And similarly, by that moral framework, the problem with infant souls going to the Abyss isn't INFANT SOULS and the ABYSS--it's that this is something the demons would want and the devas would not want. Which is only a reason for it not to happen if the devas make the rules and the demons don't get a say.

As for your actual question - the fact that you can be impious at all/just want to be left alone by the gods, and still get all the same rewards as the folks who have been devoutly religious their entire lives, tells me that the gods are not the arbiters in this particular cosmology.

That does not answer my actual question. That answers the almost completely unrelated question, "What makes you think the gods aren't ultimate cosmological arbiters?" Like veti, I tend to think it answers it badly (see my response to Vinyadan), but that fades into insignificance next to the fact that my actual question was, "What evidence do you have that some power above the gods enforces justice?" (And not "enforces that Lawful Good people care about justice.")

Just for clarity, the Deva who handed the verdict to Roy said that his lack of piety didn't really matter.

Yes, but to take that as an indication that the gods have no say in the afterlife presupposes that the gods would want it to. That (e.g.) Odin would not say, "Roy is a good man who died valiantly fighting evil, let him be rewarded, no I don't really care that he spent his life directing a kind of tepid worship in the direction of my pantheon rather than wearing a W.W.O.D. bracelet."

[Vinyadan]

Yes, but to take that as an indication that the gods have no say in the afterlife presupposes that the gods would want it to. That (e.g.) Odin would not say, "Roy is a good man who died valiantly fighting evil, let him be rewarded, no I don't really care that he spent his life directing a kind of tepid worship in the direction of my pantheon rather than wearing a W.W.O.D. bracelet."

Well, I didn't say that; I simply quoted a bit of a comic which seemed useful or pertaining to the debate here.

Besides, the gods have a say in the afterlife: if they didn't in the "who gets in" matter, they still doubtlessly do, at least in one case, in the "who gets out": Hel has the power to avoid the dishonoured dwarfs in her realm from being resurrected, even though she doesn't use it because of the Domain Agreement.

[Keltest]

Well, I didn't say that; I simply quoted a bit of a comic which seemed useful or pertaining to the debate here.

Besides, the gods have a say in the afterlife: if they didn't in the "who gets in" matter, they still doubtlessly do, at least in one case, in the "who gets out": Hel has the power to avoid the dishonoured dwarfs in her realm from being resurrected, even though she doesn't use it because of the Domain Agreement.

the gods, being gods, presumably could have a great deal of power over planar travel were they to attempt it. Presumably they don't because the last time there was any sort of serious deific conflict, a pantheon was erased from existence.

[Kish]

Well, I didn't say that; I simply quoted a bit of a comic which seemed useful or pertaining to the debate here.

Besides, the gods have a say in the afterlife: if they didn't in the "who gets in" matter, they still doubtlessly do, at least in one case, in the "who gets out": Hel has the power to avoid the dishonoured dwarfs in her realm from being resurrected, even though she doesn't use it because of the Domain Agreement.

Oh, thanks for reminding me; I did want to point out to Psyren that apparently who goes to what afterlife is a matter for debate between Thor and Hel, not standing back and watching the Cosmic Principle of Fairness dictate to both of them what they will accept.

If an infection carries a good-aligned dwarf, instead of to where she would want to go, to a place where she will have to struggle under the weight of Hel's massive cup of blood...isn't that a bit harsh?

[Psyren]

You don't really need to tell me that you see a reason not to believe he meant everything he said. I got that a long time ago.

Care to show me where he clearly said "yes, I'm aware this means babies of evil people get chucked into Hell, and this is an intended result?"

You're still generalizing the Lawful Good afterlife to the entire cosmology. Yes, the deva and the rules she follow both manifestly care about fairness. Do you wish to explicitly, not just implicitly, commit yourself to the position that so does whatever her counterpart at the Nine Hells is?

You mean, "do I think all the outer planes have to play by a common set of rules?" Rules like "we can only act directly on the mortal plane when we're making a deal?" Yes, I do.

Oh, thanks for reminding me; I did want to point out to Psyren that apparently who goes to what afterlife is a matter for debate between Thor and Hel, not standing back and watching the Cosmic Principle of Fairness dictate to both of them what they will accept.

If an infection carries a good-aligned dwarf, instead of to where she would want to go, to a place where she will have to struggle under the weight of Hel's massive cup of blood...isn't that a bit harsh?

Doesn't that particular arrangement only apply to dwarven souls, as noted by that very conversation? So it has no bearing on Eric Greenhilt's situation.

Plus, that paper-thin loophole with the alcohol and the conifers seems tailor-made to address even that minor imbalance.

[Keltest]

Doesn't that particular arrangement only apply to dwarven souls, as noted by that very conversation? So it has no bearing on Eric Greenhilt's situation.

Plus, that paper-thin loophole with the alcohol and the conifers seems tailor-made to address even that minor imbalance.

It applies to anyone who believes they should go to Hel's domain for a dishonorable death. Haley would never go even if she dies quietly in the night from a sudden heart attack, because she doesn't believe she was dishonored, and Durkon got to die in battle, so even though he ended up unleashing a spawn of evil on the world through his actions, he would still get to go to the Lawful Good afterlife when the vampire is killed. If the loophole seems contrived, its because the whole "go to Hel for your dishonor" scenario is itself contrived, and it seems like it was written purely to give Dwarves a cultural reason for their honor.

[Kish]

Care to show me where he clearly said "yes, I'm aware this means babies of evil people get chucked into Hell, and this is an intended result?"

No, I don't care to show you where he pointlessly repeated himself. What he said was clear enough; he could hardly have anticipated you deciding he only meant part of it.

You mean, "do I think all the outer planes have to play by a common set of rules?"

I mean what I said. But this is seeming increasingly pointless. I can ask for evidence that fairness is a built-in part of the cosmology all day, and you can respond with variants on, "Look at this aspect of the Lawful Good afterlife" all day. If and when we see Director Lee or some equivalent say, "Of course the Nine Hells only accepts souls who have actually done horrible things, and throws back the souls of infants who predeceased their Lawful Evil mothers, as well as dwarves who died of disease rather than in battle," I'll concede that you're right; I trust the same applies in reverse if and when we see Director Lee or some equivalent say, "Yes, the Nine Hells sometimes gets infant souls, ha ha; fairness? What a nauseatingly Good concept!"

Doesn't that particular arrangement only apply to dwarven souls, as noted by that very conversation?

This seems like willful dodging.

You're arguing for a principle: That some Cosmic Principle of Fairness which will not permit infant souls to go to lower planes decides where souls go in the afterlife. One of the implications of that principle is that the sadistic Northern death goddess and the drunkenly selfish Northern storm god should really not have anything to say about where souls go. And yet we see them arguing over it, with the very clear implication that who wins the argument will determine where the soul being argued over goes, multiple times. We don't see them standing back and Hel grumbling, "She should have been mine" as the Cosmic Principle of Fairness lifts the soul into an Upper Plane. We don't see some indication that Durkon is in fact entirely wrongheaded and Hel instead gets the souls of evil dwarves, with good dwarves who died of a disease that laid them too low to spend their last energies flipping out on a random tree still going to the upper planes; how is it fair that the flu can damn a good person, if that person is a dwarf?

How does that work with the existence of your Cosmic Principle of Fairness? Is it a Cosmic Principle of Fairness for Nondwarves, with dwarves being left to the tender mercies of the gods? (If it is, how is that fair?)

[Psyren]

How is it fair that the flu can damn a good person, if that person is a dwarf?

You're right - it's not. But that dwarf still at least has a chance. A child, a baby, would not even understand that he has to hurry and get pickled, or take a mortal splinter, in order to be saved. I simply don't see that as planned.

[Drathon'Tal]

Children of a certain age are innocent and mostly good. I see no reason for Eric to not have a Lawful Good afterlife. he is happy there.

Even if it was his brother Roy who killed him, accidentally. for references to this see. comics 496 for how roy felt about his brother and had guilt about his death. and was seriously relieved that his brother was happy and didnt blame Roy for what happened when he had that magical accident that killed him:
told about in comic 944 that um.. someone ... else? did.
( Yea thats the ticket!)

And besides the family background and surname of Greenhilt. I bet you dollars to donuts, that Erics death had quite a bit to do with Roy's decision to become a fighter, and not have any more to do with magic. despite his fathers scorn and derision.

[Jaxzan Proditor]

Even if it was his brother Roy who killed him, accidentally. for references to this see. comics 496 for how roy felt about his brother and had guilt about his death. and was seriously relieved that his brother was happy and didnt blame Roy for what happened when he had that magical accident that killed him:
told about in comic 944 that um.. someone ... else? did.
( Yea thats the ticket!)

Umm, I'm not saying what supports this idea. "I was just a kid. It wasn't my job to watch the grown up". Roy feels guilty not that he killed Eric, but that he didn't stop his father. More details are given in 944. And, of course he's relieved that his brother's happy. He would want him to be happy regardless of the circumstances of his death.

[Drathon'Tal]

you could be right, Jaxzan Proditor but I dont know. it could be that his father had a magical experiment going and roy for whatever reason fouled it.

[Jaxzan Proditor]

you could be right, Jaxzan Proditor but I dont know. it could be that his father had a magical experiment going and roy for whatever reason fouled it.

That would be the reverse, where Eugene would feel guilty for not watching Roy. Roy feels guilty for not making his father stop. In addition, Roy says it's not his fault, and I don't think he would say that even if it was just an accident, or he would at least say something that indicates that.

[JustIgnoreMe]

I can only speak for myself, but I'm with Jaxzan: my reading was that Roy tried to make Eugene aware of the danger in Eugene's experiment/research but Eugene didn't listen. That's what led to Eric's death, the screaming, crying and the little sister a few years later, and eventually the breakdown of Eugene and Sara's marriage.

Roy does say, I think, that he know it wasn't his fault, and that it wasn't his responsibility to "watch the grown-up". That only fits with Eugene being the cause and Roy feeling powerless to prevent it.

[Aquillion]

YUSH

This is my new headcanon.

Xykon disguised himself as Enrique so he could get Roy's mother to tell him things about Roy.

No, no, no.

Xykon disguised himself as Eric!

No, they are not. They are punitive only to those who don't belong there. Belkar would much rather spend an eternity fighting for supremacy in the CE than bored out of his mind in one of the peaceful G afterlives. That was Rich's point: the afterlives are supposed to be all equal - there aren't "good ones" and "bad ones" - only Good ones and Evil ones. Each one is appropriate for one of the alignment classifications, and whichever one you get is the one where you fit best and were you will spend a satisfying time until you are ready to move on, in whatever form that takes. And yes, that means that if you poke at the concept enough, you'll find plenty of holes - which was also Rich's point.

My recollection is that this is one of those things that the books are inconsistent about.

But either way, the point is that D&D afterlives are not very well thought-out and have problems when you think about them too hard (since they're really there more to give you planes to adventure on and places to summon Outsiders from rather than to create a believable cosmology, and since they're tacked on to D&D's alignment system, which is itself a bit of a silly thing.) Since OOTS is based on those, you can't expect it to hold up beyond what's necessary for the story.

Anyway all this talk of babies in the CE afterlife has me picturing EVIL BABIES with unibrows.

[The Giant]

Yes, babies of Evil mothers go to the Evil afterlives. No, it's not fair.

Fairness is not a cosmological principle, fairness is a philosophical concept that not everyone agrees on. This is not strictly a Good/Evil split either; one could easily imagine Chaotic Good folks being in favor of a process that was rampantly unfair if that unfairness benefited the weak, with Lawful Evil folks opposed to the same system because they pulled themselves up by their bootstraps without it and so should everyone else. One could argue that "survival of the fittest" is the ultimate in fairness, in that it treats everyone equally with no exceptions, but it's not an ideal that most Good people promote.

Since the OOTS cosmos was created by a committee of equal gods with a wide spectrum of alignments, philosophies, and cultural tendencies, justice is only enforced to the degree that those who favor justice could negotiate its enforcement. In some instances, they were forced to compromise and allow unjust procedures in certain areas for the sake of avoiding Snarl 2.0. In this case, the relative fairness of having one rule that applied to everyone trumped the potential injustice of innocent babies going to Hell.

Further, if it really bothers you, remember that my previous statement said that if you want to imagine those babies reincarnating eventually, you could. Maybe the psychic impressions left by spending time in Hell subtly encourages many of them to veer away from Evil in their next life. Or maybe Good priests use these facts to try to sway Evil parents away from their dastardly paths: "Turn away from the darkness, lest you drag your swaddling babe down to the Pit in your wake!" Just because it's awful to think about the individual circumstances doesn't mean that it doesn't lead to a net increase in Good over the aggregate.

And just to be clear: There is no "overgod" in OOTS at all. There are the nonsentient cosmological forces of the four alignments (Good, Evil, Law, and Chaos), which can be tapped directly for clerical power if you prefer not to go through a deific intermediary, but they have no capacity to take action any more than the force of gravity does. They certainly took no part in shaping the rules and procedures of the OOTS afterlife, as that was entirely done by the gods themselves.

[Psyren]

Then I stand thoroughly corrected, and your third paragraph is good enough justification to mollify me. Objections rescinded.

*tips internet hat to Kish*

[Drathon'Tal]

Perhaps we hold too strongly to our alignment systems as players, and too strongly to ideas of religion and good and evil from real life. you hardly see anyone fighting for chaos in real life. and you dont see people demanding that there be but one God in the game. Taking grain of salt now. Alas for Eric. I agree with this:

I can only speak for myself, but I'm with Jaxzan: my reading was that Roy tried to make Eugene aware of the danger in Eugene's experiment/research but Eugene didn't listen. That's what led to Eric's death, the screaming, crying and the little sister a few years later, and eventually the breakdown of Eugene and Sara's marriage.

Roy does say, I think, that he know it wasn't his fault, and that it wasn't his responsibility to "watch the grown-up". That only fits with Eugene being the cause and Roy feeling powerless to prevent it.

[Emperor Time]

But I don't think you need to stay in that particular Outer Plane forever. Since isn't it possible to used the Outlands in order to travel to a different Outer Plane at least in theory. I could be mistaken about that but I think it possible for the high level adventurers and for characters that are being protected by them too.

[Aquillion]

Perhaps we hold too strongly to our alignment systems as players, and too strongly to ideas of religion and good and evil from real life. you hardly see anyone fighting for chaos in real life. and you dont see people demanding that there be but one God in the game. Taking grain of salt now. Alas for Eric.

It depends what you mean by 'chaos'. Few people fight for Chaos as an abstract idea (and by its nature Chaos tends away from organized fights) but there are many people who reject the concepts of order and authority to one degree or another.

Although D&D's order / chaos divide is taken most directly from the fantasy novel Three Hearts and Three Lions, which had a sort of cold war between the forces of order as embodied by humans civilization, and the forces of chaos as embodied by the fairies -- a sort of primal, pre-human 'natural order' kind of thing.

It has its roots in this sort of divide between nature vs. artifice, and in this idea of a divide between chaos and civilization, which was popular in Victorian writing.

In more modern fiction... the Nolanverse Joker, say, is clearly on the side of Chaos. (All versions of the Joker are chaotic, but the Nolanverse one explicitly argues that he's fighting for chaos as an ideal. Of course, you can't take that entirely seriously, because he's chaotic and therefore not really committed to any ideal...) Or Jack Sparrow from Pirates of the Caribbean.

Chaotic types in real life are the kind of people you tend to hear described as "free spirits". (Or "homicidal maniacs", of course, if they're closer to the evil end of the spectrum.)

[Grey_Wolf_c]

you hardly see anyone fighting for chaos in real life.

I strongly disagree, but the only way to defend my position would involve politics and be a gross violation of forum rules. However, consider (privately): can you think of people who want to repeal laws because they find them too restrictive? Those people are fighting for "Chaos", i.e. liberty & freedom.

Grey Wolf

[DaggerPen]

Yes, babies of Evil mothers go to the Evil afterlives. No, it's not fair.

Fairness is not a cosmological principle, fairness is a philosophical concept that not everyone agrees on. This is not strictly a Good/Evil split either; one could easily imagine Chaotic Good folks being in favor of a process that was rampantly unfair if that unfairness benefited the weak, with Lawful Evil folks opposed to the same system because they pulled themselves up by their bootstraps without it and so should everyone else. One could argue that "survival of the fittest" is the ultimate in fairness, in that it treats everyone equally with no exceptions, but it's not an ideal that most Good people promote.

Since the OOTS cosmos was created by a committee of equal gods with a wide spectrum of alignments, philosophies, and cultural tendencies, justice is only enforced to the degree that those who favor justice could negotiate its enforcement. In some instances, they were forced to compromise and allow unjust procedures in certain areas for the sake of avoiding Snarl 2.0. In this case, the relative fairness of having one rule that applied to everyone trumped the potential injustice of innocent babies going to Hell.

Further, if it really bothers you, remember that my previous statement said that if you want to imagine those babies reincarnating eventually, you could. Maybe the psychic impressions left by spending time in Hell subtly encourages many of them to veer away from Evil in their next life. Or maybe Good priests use these facts to try to sway Evil parents away from their dastardly paths: "Turn away from the darkness, lest you drag your swaddling babe down to the Pit in your wake!" Just because it's awful to think about the individual circumstances doesn't mean that it doesn't lead to a net increase in Good over the aggregate.

And just to be clear: There is no "overgod" in OOTS at all. There are the nonsentient cosmological forces of the four alignments (Good, Evil, Law, and Chaos), which can be tapped directly for clerical power if you prefer not to go through a deific intermediary, but they have no capacity to take action any more than the force of gravity does. They certainly took no part in shaping the rules and procedures of the OOTS afterlife, as that was entirely done by the gods themselves.

Spoiler: SOD Spoilers

Show

Is it weird that this just makes me wonder even more about the Dark One's story re: goblin creation, and what gods may have been responsible for it if goblins were really created as XP bait?

[Reddish Mage]

And just to be clear: There is no "overgod" in OOTS at all. There are the nonsentient cosmological forces of the four alignments (Good, Evil, Law, and Chaos), which can be tapped directly for clerical power if you prefer not to go through a deific intermediary, but they have no capacity to take action any more than the force of gravity does. They certainly took no part in shaping the rules and procedures of the OOTS afterlife, as that was entirely done by the gods themselves.

Shouldn't neutrality be its own cosmological force to be consistent with D&D rules and what little metaphysics are present in Core?

[Ron Miel]

How am I supposed to outrun a lion in urban environment otherwise? Especially on rush our.

"We", Kemosabe?

[Rogar Demonblud]

Shouldn't neutrality be its own cosmological force to be consistent with D&D rules and what little metaphysics are present in Core?

Neutrality is kind of the Zen no-mind koan of the D&D alignment system.

[Reddish Mage]

Neutrality is kind of the Zen no-mind koan of the D&D alignment system.

I'm not sure there can possibly be a less helpful answer than that.

[Keltest]

I'm not sure there can possibly be a less helpful answer than that.

Give us time.

[Rogar Demonblud]

Neutrality cannot be explained, learned, discussed or comprehended. It can only be understood.

This is the path to enlightenment.