Is the afterlife known?

[NiteCyper]

Simple question.

(click to show/hide)

As far as commitment comment. Thing is, role-playing intentions of most characters are not the same as most players come to understand them. As in its a wide spread fact amongst players that your afterlife is to accordance to your alignment/god worshiped, or there are in fact afterlives at all. Average character however (besides being a wizards and the rest of tier1 brigade) do not really know it unless he literally been to 9 hells, Abyss, Celestia, Limbo & etc.

IMO, these are the facts that are taken for granted a tidy bit too much. I understand there is convenience to it("yea, lets charge, we'll get resd later" deal and etc.) but It seems that such ideas are rather detrimental to role-playing... Than again it might be just me.

If you mean that characters shouldn't know where the afterlife leads them, I must disagree. We don't know where the afterlife leads us because nobody has ever made scientifically certifiable contact "from beyond the void". With the existence of beings belonging specifically to those afterlife plains, magic that lets you communicate with the dead, magic that lets you plane shift, etc. I expect knowledge of the afterlife to be common.
"Ya, let's charge; we'll get resurrected later" should be a common mindset because the only way that you're going to have that mindset is if you're at a high enough level for that to be commonly viable, and that means superhero levels. If you don't want the players to have that mindset, that's why E6 was invented.

If you mean that characters shouldn't know where the afterlife leads them, I must disagree. We don't know where the afterlife leads us because nobody has ever made scientifically certifiable contact "from beyond the void".

IMO, unless character is from Tier1, or at best 2, he has no idea even if he is around lvl12. Tier1&2 are not the chatty types either. And even if there is a cleric of Palor preaching around town, that is as convincing as Clreic of Hextor preaching. And about as likely. You see, unlike the higher magic users who even fluff-wise speedily become demigods, a regular character can't make those assumptions unless confirmed by personal observation, like traveling to Baator to pick up wizard's groceries = \

Surely after ENOUGH adventuring the ideas of afterlife and revolving doors will sink in. But to make it that far, is not easy ^^. So surly a party cleric is dead-sure where he goes after he kicks the bucket, but even he can have doubts if his deity is not very "good" and displeasing it might warrant going into alignment specific planes. As usual, the Wizard out does cleric in that one too heh, as Wizards all-absolving curiosity will lead him to different planes and etc. etc. Sad but true.

P.S. Than, again I am not trying to convince anyone in anything ^^. Just explaining my opinion.

Power determines knowledge of afterlife. And even if there is a cleric of Palor preaching around town, that is as convincing as Clreic of Hextor preaching. And about as likely. You see, unlike the higher magic users who even fluff-wise speedily become demigods, a regular character can't make those assumptions unless confirmed by personal observation, like traveling to Baator to pick up wizard's groceries = \

Surely after ENOUGH adventuring the ideas of afterlife and revolving doors will sink in. But to make it that far, is not easy ^^. So surly a party cleric is dead-sure where he goes after he kicks the bucket, but even he can have doubts if his deity is not very "good" and displeasing it might warrant going into alignment specific planes. As usual, the Wizard out does cleric in that one too heh, as Wizards all-absolving curiosity will lead him to different planes and etc. etc. Sad but true.

I am going to base off this. I trust the Tome (of Awesome) when it says D&D is set around year 0+-500 years. Although you say that "Tier1&2 are not the chatty types either", that assumes that scientists would not reveal their findings about the science of magic. It's hard for me not to be able to refute that argument when the rebuttal is in the world that exists today.
When you come to think about it, there is power behind not revealing your name, but when you know that and come to a situation in real life where you are meeting someone new, not revealing your name solely for power reasons suddenly becomes ridiculous. In theory, technocracy could be considered the natural evolution of government.
Let me pose another example: I played Borderlands (FPS RPG) in a small online community (OnLive). I was known as the best on there, knowing many tricks. I evolved to be what you believe would be the case, but the main example is everyone else. One could believe that the item economy would be...normal, despite the existence of item duplication glitches. But, what's common is that the best weapons are duplicated from person to person. In my case, I am miserly with my gear, specifically because I am the best: I did all the work in raids, so I started raiding alone and sharing no loot drops. However, most people don't play the game like I do: To them it's a cooperative experience. Any awesome item that was found was to be duplicated just like you'd tell your friend a better cooking recipe for a favourite meal. You wouldn't extort your friend for the better recipe.

Not only that, you could consider there to be a greater motivation to be nice and share information since there is knowledge of heaven and hell. Mr. X, in his diligent study, scientifically establishes that there's a heaven and hell. Mr. X stops not sharing information about heaven and hell because he wants to go to heaven by sharing information to be nice. Mr. Y learns from Mr. X about the scientifically established existence of heaven and hell, and the cycle repeats.

I think this a "agree to disagree" situation. IMO, in D&D in some realms (ebberon as example) your answer would make more sense as magical "technocracy" is almost a state of things and information does not get lost. However in D&D in general, wizards are not abundant and even if magic in general is, its more akin to our technology rather than techno-utopia. IMO you are basing an argument at least partial on how you would act. I hate to sound like a "conspiracy nut" or something similar, but technology even in our day and age is closely guarded and just like you can't stroll into Lockheed Martin or General Dynamic and just ask for secrets, by same analogy, asking an eldar wizards about secrets of ze universe at best will likely to irritate him (ask a physicist to "teach you physics") and at worst make him afraid for his power.

Than there is "trusting someone's word". A wizard might tell you that he have been to 9 hells just yesterday and weather isn't great there, but will you trust him? In our world people don't fully trust scientists and a lot of time bluntly contradict and refute them (see creation movement, not the smart kind, the erm... stubborn one[no offense meant if you hold belief dearly, I wouldn't mind either way as long as you don't come to my house ^^]).

Basically speaking IMO, even past E6 to at least 15(I guess?) this knowledge is not so abundant as you might think.

But again=>

I think this a "agree to disagree" situation.

^^

But enough abstraction.

[caelic]

This is another of those areas where it seems like the D&D world would be very different from ours.   Evil and good are quantifiable, measurable values.  There's no deliberation over whether a given act is good or evil; you can actually check and find out.  There's no deliberation over whether a given PERSON is good or evil; there are multiple measures that will reveal that.  ("But I'm not evil, I'm good!"  "Sorry, dude, the Forbiddance and the aligned magical weapon both say otherwise.")  The same goes for the afterlife.  Is it likely that the average peasant will have personal contact with representatives from said afterlife?  No.  Is it likely that centuries of such contact by high-ranking members of the church will lead to an accurate knowledge of the afterlife, which will be passed down to the common flock?  Absolutely!

[RobbyPants]

In a world with Divinations and the ability to come back from the dead (after going to the afterlife!), I'd say it's known in D&D land. Any one random dirt farmer might have his doubts, but with the right magic, you can find these things out.

[awaken_D_M_golem]

Fluff ... depends on how tight to the book fluff a campaign goes.
Moradin gathers all souls to him;  where is he and what does he do with them?

Crunch ... Take 20 + 1 cc rank - 3 for Int of smart goat + 4 Aid Anothers (after years of doing this)
= Knowledge X check DC of 22 via the town Commoner 1s. That gets everyone to know that
when Bob died he got turned into that Ghost over there, so leave the ghost alone, please.
He's family ... 

[PlzBreakMyCampaign]

There's no deliberation over whether a given act is good or evil; you can actually check and find out.

You didn't mean this but its moot because you still /threaded this.

There are no evil-meters irl but there are definitely ways to tell if someone is evil or not. Getting access to that information is not always difficult and yes there will be people who will make excuses for or even believe in said evil actions. I think it would be amusing for a low level campaign to have an evil NPC help the party and be think he is neutral. Essential the buck stops when he says, "I don't believe you or your items."

[AyeGill]

There's no deliberation over whether a given act is good or evil; you can actually check and find out.

You didn't mean this but its moot because you still /threaded this.

There are no evil-meters irl but there are definitely ways to tell if someone is evil or not. Getting access to that information is not always difficult and yes there will be people who will make excuses for or even believe in said evil actions. I think it would be amusing for a low level campaign to have an evil NPC help the party and be think he is neutral. Essential the buck stops when he says, "I don't believe you or your items."

I'm just really quickly going to point out that there's no objective way to judge evil IRL. Yes, obviously you can observe people's actions, but what you think of as evil may not be the same as what i think of as evil, or what people from a completely different culture think of as evil. In DnD, it's different. There could still be cultures with moral values that disagreed with the detect evil/good spell, but then their moral values would be wrong, because evil isn't a matter of moral values relative to a person or culture, it's an objective, quantifiable matter, judged absolutely by the universe.

Now, to be sure, some people believe in objective morals. You might, and if you speak from that perspective, then it's true that evil is quantifiable IRL as well. But let's not have that argument.

[SolEiji]

I've always found it easiest to think of D&D capital Good and Evil as being a sort of elemental force.... in this case, a metaphysical element of "goodness" which happens to be associated with certain behaviors, and metaphysical evil, and law, and chaos.  Thus, in D&D world you can have a good nation and then have an evil nation, but they don't care because their culture happens to find the activities to be associated with evil to be positive in their culture.  Therefore, they might object to being called bad people but don't deny they light up Elemental Evil when his with a Detect spell, because they associate that with things they proclaim as positive anyway.

In this way you might still have subjective good and evil, but still have objective Good and Evil.

[veekie]

It depends on whether its known in an academic and religious sense(in particular spellcasters who possess the necessary Divinations to ask about it and Plane Shift to visit in person) or whether its actual common knowledge. These are not easily attainable commodities.

Religious authorities(who have the lowest level access to afterlife related magic) are by definition biased of course, especially with alignment lines often denoting interfaith alliances and feuds, and even they would have more clergy who know by hearsay from higher up in the church than those who actually DO know from direct personal experience.

Communication is another, spell based communications is generally costly and rare, requiring significant investment from leveled and specialized characters to perform. So theres no modern media unless a high level caster decided to use item creation to go Tippyverse, at significant personal expenditure. You'd have expensive, if fast, long distance courier, which would generally be going into strategic news rather than the facts of life.

So...anyone with a formal higher education is likely to know the facts, the majority of the common folk get whatever their preferred church teaches.

[spacemonkey555]

Angels can be of any good alignment. Regardless of their alignment, angels never lie, cheat, or steal. They are impeccably honorable in all their dealings and often prove the most trustworthy and diplomatic of all the celestials.
...though they can speak with almost any creature because of their tongues ability
...Diplomacy +22
...at will - plane shift

These guys were custom-made to go door to door and spread the good word. It only takes a level 11 caster to summon one. Any individual in a city that sought the information could have an angel summoned for a reasonable cost, and priests would have a vested interest in spreading the word.

I'd say anyone would be well aware of the afterlife, even the peasants. If they weren't, the gods missing out on the souls/worship would send angels to start up some new cults and get the ball rolling again.

[SorO_Lost]

Yes it's known.

Druids don't believe in Reincarnate, they will it into reality.
Gods are not debated if they exist or not, they do and they make them selves known.
Afterlife isn't a question, people come back all the damn time.
Ever Wizard ever doesn't vow never to reveal information, they are paid to tell it.

Got 150 gold? You can run down town and ask your dead wife where she kept the passports at. Maybe a couple people whisper it's a lie, not because of open ended questions and guessing because the corpse certainly knew where it put the passports, the places you went, and witty comments said there, but because there is no divine law preventing you from speaking about the after life (speak with dead doesn't contact the soul) and people returned from the dead have no memory of the contact. Yeah, the debate here isn't after life or returning from the dead as those are facts. It's was the spell used a false lie or the real thing?

[caelic]

Religious authorities(who have the lowest level access to afterlife related magic) are by definition biased of course, especially with alignment lines often denoting interfaith alliances and feuds, and even they would have more clergy who know by hearsay from higher up in the church than those who actually DO know from direct personal experience.

I think you're failing to take enlightened self-interest into account.

The churches are in competition for worshipers, and very few gods are NOT going to want more worshipers, seeing as that's one of the main ways they grow in power.

If your church preaches about the power and glory of your deity, and does nothing else, and the church down the street preaches about the power and glory of THEIR deity and regularly backs it up with miracles, which church is going to attract more followers?

Thus, it behooves clerics of just about any faith to actively and aggressively proselytize--and to back up their proselytizing with a demonstration of their god's power.

Not every roadside chapel is going to have a cleric capable of calling down angels to provide a personal eyewitness account of what the heavens are like, true--but when the guy who healed your broken leg with a gesture, cured your grandmother who was dying of the plague, and saved little Jimmy from snakebite says "This is what you need to know about the afterlife," you're probably going to be inclined to listen.  After all, you have tangible evidence that he's in good with at least ONE of the gods.

[awaken_D_M_golem]

... except for the various god(s) of secrets.

The gawd is a secret.
There's a secret about the so-called "afterlife".
The evidence is a deliberate lie, which the secrets gawd has pierced.
What really happens (-ed) is a super secret.
Does the afterlife exist or not exist ... you don't know, it's a secret.

 

[NiteCyper]

(speak with dead doesn't contact the soul) and people returned from the dead have no memory of the contact. Yeah, the debate here isn't after life or returning from the dead as those are facts. It's was the spell used a false lie or the real thing?

There is no spoon quandary. You say it yourself: "speak with dead doesn't contact the soul". Also, I'm a physicalist so souls anger me.
"Welcome back, honey! I thought I'd resurrect you as a return anniversary gift for the Prestidigitation trap."
"Wait, how did you know about that? How did you know I was going to give you that for our anniversary?"
"Well, I-uh...I had Speak with Dead cast."
"You did what with my corpse?! You promised you wouldn't!"
"I thought this was different."
"How?! How did you think-?"
"Well, I mean you died so suddenly, you know?"
"That doesn't change anything!"
"I'll...I'll leave you two alone," said the Cleric, not necessarily heard over the exchange.
"I made it very clear: I do not want anyone doing anything with my corpse!"
"Well, I'm sorry, I'm sorry you didn't want to be resurrected!"
"Yes, in fact I didn't! I met this very nice archon who treats me right, who-who..who never smells bad enough that I have to buy them Prestidigitation, who never disrespects my wishes-"
"Oh! Well! I'm sure that's hard for them to do what with them being LAWFUL and all! Where did you meet this archon? On a stroll on the Styx promenade? I suppose Charon took you two on a beautiful, romantic gondola-ride together. Are you sure you're not mistaking archon with devil?"
"I do not need this! Before you resurrected me, I was living the afterlife! This is why I didn't want my corpse to be messed with, especially not resurrected! I think I may kill myself."
"Oh yaaa, goo ahead, waste the diamonds worth the 10 grand it took to bring you back to the material plane!"

sea crits

All this talk of secrets makes me realize that the question stands in relation to the fact that many people today (and since time immemorial) already believe that there's an afterlife. This is a question beyond: "Hey, what if there suddenly existed a way to resurrect dead people, and not like zombies, but intelligent resurrected?" To be fair, that does not change probability to 0 or 1. But, if the DM allowed magically advanced, urban, middle class families to bloom, gods know classical antiquity hipsters would perfuse it underground, then it'd hit the main-stream.
"Did you know that the afterlife is real?"
"Psh, I knew that since I was fifty years old," boasted the elf.

[veekie]

Not every roadside chapel is going to have a cleric capable of calling down angels to provide a personal eyewitness account of what the heavens are like, true--but when the guy who healed your broken leg with a gesture, cured your grandmother who was dying of the plague, and saved little Jimmy from snakebite says "This is what you need to know about the afterlife," you're probably going to be inclined to listen.  After all, you have tangible evidence that he's in good with at least ONE of the gods.

That is true, though again, its a single biased perspective, who'd know about the afterlife from his religion's PoV(presumably by word of mouth from higher in the church). This may be somewhat distinct from an actual view of the way the afterlife works.

[Lycanthromancer]

You can't resurrect the unwilling.

However, unconscious creatures are always considered willing, so either scry and wait until she's asleep or planeshift and knock her out before abducting her.

[awaken_D_M_golem]

Heh ... that's where all these twilight girls got their ideas.

I want to "die" and come back as your vampire love slave 

Life sucks !! (in a good way)
After Life is even more lovey-dovey.

Every pre-teen Half-Orc knows this.

[NiteCyper]

You can't resurrect the unwilling.

However, unconscious creatures are always considered willing, so either scry and wait until she's asleep or planeshift and knock her out before abducting her.

Can souls be unconscious?

[PlzBreakMyCampaign]

Every time religion is applied to D&D satan converts another cat-girl

objective way to judge evil

agreed. Some will always disagree, but that doesn't detract from my point

[SolEiji]

Every time religion is applied to D&D satan converts another cat-girl

objective way to judge evil

agreed. Some will always disagree, but that doesn't detract from my point

Ha ha ha, how true.  Oh, a link on catgirls, I wonder what adorible image is behind tha-



JESUS CHRIST MY EYES!!!!

[SorO_Lost]

Must... Rip... Eyes. ...Out.