Hell in Dungeon Fantasy
 

I am curious about how to reconcile the opposing views of Hell from myths and from Dungeon Fantasy. In myths Hell is sort of a place of punishment for evil deeds. People who have led wicked lives get sentenced to Hell and must endure punishments for their crimes. In this concept Hell seems to be under control of the gods. In Dungeon Fantasy Hell is a place where the forces of evil live (or were sent to) and it is a place where the gods have no control. In the second concept people who led wicked lives would be rewarded by the demons there. Why would a demon who opposes the gods punish wicked people who refuse to follow the gods? In a Dungeon Fantasy Hell, it seems to function as a base for the forces of evil so why would evil people be punished by demons in this type of Hell? Thanks.

Re: Hell in Dungeon Fantasy
 

The most common reconciliation I've seen is that the evil people punish themselves: you put a punch of murderous sadists together and you get a pretty nasty situation out of it. The demons are just a group of exiled souls that happen to be more powerful than the other things in there.

Hell isn't a place of punishment, its a dumping ground for unwanted souls.

Re: Hell in Dungeon Fantasy
 

As you say maybe they aren't punished. Maybe they go there and just becomes other demons - soldiers if you like.

The notion of "heaven for good girls", and "hell for bad boys" is a religious concept tied to the Abrahamic religions of our world. For instance Buddhists have no hell, you are just reborn as an insect or something. In the old norse religion you went to Valhalla (sort of the heavens) when you died in battle, and Hel (dark, dank, cold place where you were punished) if you died without a weapon in your hand; being good or bad had nothing to do with it.

In a fantasy world I think normally you'd go to the death realm when you die (like the one of the Raven Queen in D&D world's) if you behaved decently, and to limbo if you did not.
In some fantasy settings you might go the realm of your own god if you pleased him/her well enough. But I think you'd still go to limbo if you did not. so I guess limbo (dark empty plane of nothing) is where you, go if no one wants your soul, in a fantasy world.

Re: Hell in Dungeon Fantasy
 

Assuming gods don't trade souls like playing cards. Most pantheons are full of douche-bag "good guys".

Re: Hell in Dungeon Fantasy
 

Uh, I seem to remembering there being a hell-like variant of rebirth that's for cases when being an insect or hungry ghost is not bad enough. At least in some confessions, anyway.

Re: Hell in Dungeon Fantasy
 

Well, of course trading card-souls is an option.

Another would be using them as (low-output but) perpetual motion engines of sorts. It's just that we puny mortals find the methods of energy extraction weird.

Re: Hell in Dungeon Fantasy
 

Sisyphus being the obvious "engine".

Re: Hell in Dungeon Fantasy
 

The In Nomine version of Hell could work, otherwise?

The wicked mortals gain power in their earthly life... and a chance at true, lasting power in Hell when they die. The fact that Hell runs on social darwinism to the power of eleven shouldn't concern the many egomaniacs that seem to make up the evil alignment, and minions and flunkies probably never stopped to consider what price they'd pay. If demons (as in Supernatural) really are just souls who have been corrupted into something else, well, you're golden.

Re: Hell in Dungeon Fantasy
 

Variants on this. The Demons/Evil Gods/Whatever don't intentionally punish evil souls. They just use them as a resource in their war against the Good Gods and the mortal plane. And because they are Evil, that use happens to painful for the souls involved. Using them as energy sources, using them as slaves, molding them to make new demons, etc are variants on this general scheme.

Another possibility (not mutually exclusive) is that Hell is inherently unpleasant. Souls aren't punished by demons per se, they're punished by the nature of Hell itself. The demons may control Hell, at least to some extent, but they don't waste a lot of effort making things pleasant for souls there, because, you know, Evil. Hell could still be designed as a place of punishment originally, but the demons are inmates running the asylum now; they've broken free of their bonds, so they can use it as a base, but it's still a place of punishment and everybody suffers there. Or the thing that causes suffering in souls is same thing that makes Hell a safe haven from the Good Gods, either because it was a desolate place the Gods abandoned or as an intentional defense mechanism.

Re: Hell in Dungeon Fantasy
 

Because demons are pure evil, in a way that doesn't obey our mortal sense of logic or justice.

They don't punish you because you were evil. They punish you because they are compelled by their natures to cause suffering and you are in their power.

At least that's how I would play it.

Re: Hell in Dungeon Fantasy
 

Because souls provide power in both heaven and hell. The only way for denizens of hell (demons) to gain this power is through pain and torture of the soul. Heaven has far gentler ways.

Re: Hell in Dungeon Fantasy
 

The way I run it is fairly simple. The lower/abyssal planes (there are more places than hell) are just planes inhabited by creatures and gods determined to be 'evil' (by a consensus of all the gods, they have their own sorting algorithm for determining this sort of thing, there is no intrinsic morality in my game).

If you end up in one of these planes its because:

• you either chose to go there (at death, or broke in/found a way in whilst alive for some reason),
• something there has 'claimed' your soul (you gave it up as part of an agreement, had something way more powerful than you 'wrestle' ownership of it from you) which has basically put you there, or is waiting until your death where you'll naturally* end up there,
• something powerful put you there, which tends to be a fairly traumatic experience in itself - and often leaves you in a vulnerable state when you get there.

* The way you 'naturally' end up in one of these planes when you die, even when attempting to escape the 'claim' of an entity from it, is because of the third point. In short, pretty much all the gods, from the celestial and abyssal planes have agreed to uphold any justified claims to a soul, meaning they'll all send you to the 'correct' place if you attempt to enter their domain. This also happens if you have forsaken the god in charge of the domain you're attempting to get into and they are therefore less than pleased with you, or have pledged allegiance to a different god etc. It's in all of the gods interests to uphold this agreement as you often don't want to start wars over a single individuals soul, its rarely worth the headache.

'Suffering' is a result of basically not being powerful enough to rise above the constant turmoil that is the power struggle that rages in these lower-planes, not a direct facet of the planes themselves or even from any sense of 'punishment'.
The forces that reside in these places just want power and if you can't defend yourself, then your soul is it (which is generally not a very pleasant experience whilst it lasts). If you can defend yourself though, then you can attempt to climb the ladder and perhaps rival the guys in charge - and take their power if you can defeat them.

This is why 'evil' minded people often want to go to these planes, it's a chance of becoming more powerful and living out eternity as the guy in charge. Of cause if you tried this in other planes (some of which are 'lower' but are ruled by gods who don't like this means of running their domains), you swiftly get kicked you out by those who are in charge (and generally put in a plane where that sort of thing is encouraged, as so not to get any neighbourly complaints from the owner of the plane you just dumped them in).


EDIT: I should point out that the whole "casting out" from one plane to another is basically you being manhandled out, often making it hard to fight once you reach your destination. This is why its a punishment to be damned and 'cast down', as the god just chooses a plane which doesn't mind extra fodder being added to its ranks because "hey, free food", and knows you wont last very long there once you arrive there. It's also why gods have to fight wars on their home turf when invaded before they can kick everyone out, they're powerful, but they still have to force them out - which is harder to do the more powerful they are.

Re: Hell in Dungeon Fantasy
 

Correct. Just about all types of Buddhism with which I'm familiar recognize the existence of Hell(s) and are the destinations of those who intentionally inflict undue suffering on other beings. Once they've served their time, the souls (even demons) in Hell(s) will be reborn somewhere else (if appropriate).

Re: Hell in Dungeon Fantasy
 

Except when they do.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naraka_(Buddhism)


In D&D most people who go to the lower planes become just food for the stronger inhabitants. Those who are strong can make a place for themselves, but are still living in a brutal tyranny or anarchy in which they will never be at the top. Note that in most Christian theologies, God does not punish the unrepentant after death. It simply fails to protect them from the fallen angels who hate them.

Re: Hell in Dungeon Fantasy
 

I've always regarded it as "Demons and devil will be horrible to whatever's lying around".

Sending evil souls to hell is like throwing someone you don't like into a pit with hungry lions in it. The lions don't tear him apart because you've ordered them to, they tear them apart because they're hungry and he's prey. You're just exploiting this aspect of their nature by confining them to a pit where they won't inconvenience you and are available for into-pit-throwing days.

The pit is Hell, the devils are hungry lions, and the souls are sent there by gods that don't like them. Or possibly abstract universal soul sorting rules, or whatever.

Devils trick mortals into doing things that gets their soul assigned to Hell because they're hungry lions and they're smart enough to try to get people thrown into their pit.

Re: Hell in Dungeon Fantasy
 

In Planescape, petitioners (dead souls) may understand as a word that the name of the place they're in is Hell (or, more specifically, Baator, Gehenna, etc.), but the assumption is that souls belong there. There are numerous flavors of evil, and Hell attracts souls that primarily embraced the concepts that made up that worldview.

The fact that life sucks for human souls on the bottom of the energy-extraction, torture-for-fun, drafted-into-Armageddon social ladder that is Hell is simply a byproduct of the fact that everyone else around them subscribes to the same exploitative, cruel, or selfish outlook that they pursued in life themselves, or something spiritually kin to it. To the extent that fiends understand that the souls beneath them rejected the gods, they regard those souls as having made the correct choice, the one any sane creature would make (or some somewhat similar formulation.) Hell is what the world would be if the fiends were in control.

Why fiends are allowed to do this by gods varies between religions. The chaotic gods tend to regard the consequences of free will as paramount. The lawful gods may regard devils as jailors, or simply as others jailed that happen to be running the prison. The basic conflict between the idea of an entity with infinite goodness and that entity permitting infinite punishment for a finite life's worth of transgressions is, of course, one of the major problems of apologetics and one of atheism's stronger arguments against such setups.

Re: Hell in Dungeon Fantasy
 

Actually, souls, or spirits, being simply a form of rareified matter, are subject to Gay-Lussac's law, and so if we assume a constant volume of Hell, it becomes quite easily a very efficient heat engine. This explains both how energy is extracted from Hell and why, even to the uneducated mind, it is understood to be very hot. Thus the explanation of why souls go to Hell rests on the understanding of why this energy is needed.

Re: Hell in Dungeon Fantasy
 

To cook bacon? To hatch a dragon-demon who will consume the world? To make the blobs float about in a huge cosmic lavalamp? Any and all of these are acceptable answers.

Re: Hell in Dungeon Fantasy
 

In my D&D descended games, Hell is more like Chinese mythic hell, where souls are purified of sin before the immortal part is eligible for reincarnation. There's also an Abyss, where kidnapped* souls are kept for power and used as a currency.

*: Anyone who's not faithful enough to be provided with a psychopomp by the gods has to go stand in a queue that seems to stretch into eternity (current waiting time: 144 years, PLEASE YOU WILL NOT SMOKE.) Demons make raids against the Line and keep whoever they carry off.

What really amuses me is that PCs don't discover religion in my games, as a rule, till one of them dies and I describe the Line. Hell may have its horrors, but apparently a huge, unending queue of bodies is truly terrifying.

Re: Hell in Dungeon Fantasy
 

When trying to figure out the locale of Hell, don't forget the wisdom of the sage B'linda Carlisle, whose landmark treatise on the subject asserted that Heaven is a place on Earth.

Re: Hell in Dungeon Fantasy
 

So, does this mean "Our Lips Are Sealed" is about trying to protect a Satanic conspiracy?

Re: Hell in Dungeon Fantasy
 

Somewhat counter-anticipated by Kit Marlowe, natch.

Why this is hell, nor am I out of it. Think'st thou that I, who saw the face of God and tasted the eternal joy of heaven, am not tormented with ten thousand hells in being deprived of everlasting bliss?

Re: Hell in Dungeon Fantasy
 

The, "YOINK! Ha, ha, ha." definition of hell.
I've thought of that as the real reason eternal life can suck. You've seen heaven and know exactly what you're missing.

Re: Hell in Dungeon Fantasy
 

Actually reward and punishment meaning of good and bad does enter into. It's just the judgment of what the qualifiers are is different. A Brave death is simplified out look of a brave life, as if you don't live like that you risk a bad death.


In my Shielded-Lands campaigns souls go to planes that resonate with their natures spending the time in such compatible planes strengthens the soul till it's read to be reborn back into the world.

Re: Hell in Dungeon Fantasy
 

Well, that's what In Nomine demons tell humans... but demons lie.

Re: Hell in Dungeon Fantasy
 

In one way you could say that demons were the gods creation. They were created to torment those wicked beings who did not follow the laws of the gods. So in one way they are doing the will of the gods even while they are supposed to oppose the gods.

Or maybe there could be servants of the gods that live in Hell to perform tortures on the souls of the wicked and demons are something altogether different. Maybe demons have escaped from their tortures and are now in a deeper part of Hell trying to build an army to get revenge on the gods.

Re: Hell in Dungeon Fantasy
 

Demons are just "prosecutors" that began to enjoy their job too much.

Re: Hell in Dungeon Fantasy
 

Such reincarnation sounds almost as depressing as non existence. If anything it would make me want eternal life even more.

But yeah, good and evil are cultural subjective terms. I've always thought that if there were a god, then he better be ready for one eons long argument from me when I get there. :)

Re: Hell in Dungeon Fantasy
 

<shrug> I'm content with the "some of the gods are just plain evil" approach. Or at least, prepared to extract power from the torment of victimized souls.

Re: Hell in Dungeon Fantasy
 

I think that it's all really going to boil down to your own concept of Hell and how (and/or if) you want to portray it.

In most of my own games, true Hell is an immeasurably vast expanse of empty plain just dimly-lit enough for you to know that it is dimly lit. There is nothing to see or do, you don't feel the need to eat or sleep, and you never encounter anyone else. It is an eternity of sheer boredom.

Those creatures known as "devils", "demons" and various good or evil "gods" what-not do not actually come from Heaven or Hell. Rather, they hail from various alternate planes of existence, many of which have been given names that are customarily associated with various concepts of their respective domains.

Re: Hell in Dungeon Fantasy
 

In my own fantasy campaign I have hell be a 'natural' plane- by default all souls end up there, and everything there (directly or indirectly) is made of souls.

Demons themselves feed on souls, all of there towers, and citadels are build with souls, the entire existence, economy, and even there base selves are constructed from soul matter.

The elaborate tortures that the soul feels when in 'hell' are not real, but are a reflection of the soul reacting to the consumption, digestion, manipulation, and transformation of there soul into everything that makes up the abyss. The greater the 'taint' on a soul from evil, the more processing/digesting/etc it takes for a demon to get what it wants from it, and processing by the demon translates to tortures for the soul. Demons really like pure innocent souls, they require no processing at all and are generally more potent to boot.

gods by comparison are powered by worship and belief, and worship from a soul, while not as good as worship from the living, is still worth something. So gods snatch there chosen followers away from the abyss (at some risk to the god or at least its agents) to live in whatever dimensions they have constructed for there followers.

As for what happens to a soul after the demons have completely used it up, not even the demons know.

Re: Hell in Dungeon Fantasy
 

Well, a soul can't enter into the brightest celestial city with any darkness within it... So perhaps before one can enter heaven, all a soul's light and beauty a are purified...

All the weakness, suppressed malice, jealousy and rage, that little sadistic streak that was overcome and buried deep, all wrung free and cast away, so that the pure goodness of the soul could ascend.

But what of those shadows that were cast off? Left to drift in the ether through the worlds, gathering with other shadows like themselves. In this unseen storm of dark passions is where demons are born....

Demons as heaven's pollution, I love it!

Re: Hell in Dungeon Fantasy
 

Why would it be depressing? your soul goes to a place where you actual agree with the other locals on what the proper way to live, and you hang out there until you're ready another go at life. Of course while partaking on a prime material life you don't normally remember you past reincarnations. Though souls also have the ability to transcend beyond the mortal, so thoughs might makes right types are not automatically doomed to be the bottom of the heap on their planes just but it the exceptional that manage to pull that off.

of Course in the setting the Death goddess, is actually the Goddess of the life cycle, Her priests are quite happily heal you, unless it's 'your time' then they work to give you the best transition, and making sure you get to your right plane. but they're just as consorted with being midwives too. What they hate is the Undead.

Re: Hell in Dungeon Fantasy
 

It's sisyphean in the extreme. Everything you are is erased, and you struggle to attain an identity again, only for it too to be erased in a never ending cycle of mortal suffering and a brief respite where you can see that fall into the mud of life getting closer and closer. That blows!

I would need to have some way of escaping the endless "soul laundry cycle" in any game I would want to play in. But not the Buddhist obliteration of identity/soul kind. That's just as bad, but far more complex than simple non existence.

Re: Hell in Dungeon Fantasy
 

It could be as in The Screwtape Letters...



SPOILER ALERT SPOILER ALERT

Re: Hell in Dungeon Fantasy
 

Then it killed Tasha Yar... that demon bastard! STNG joke.

Re: Hell in Dungeon Fantasy
 

It's not erased per say but a lot of the progress is on the subconscious level for mortals.

Hence the 'reborn when you're ready' if you're not ready you not reborn. Plus it is possible transcend at least to the divine servitor level if the condition are right. Actually a couple of the gods are actually divine servitors who ascended to godhood. [there also a mortal that ascended to god hood] but such assentions to godhood requires an open meme that you can fill.

Re: Hell in Dungeon Fantasy
 

The idea that souls are just another layer with almost exactly the same rules and physical laws as reality just seems like such a lame failure of imagination. It adds nothing but needless complexity. You got to change it up a bit to keep my attention.

Re: Hell in Dungeon Fantasy
 

I just can't see how any but the tiniest speck minority would ever voluntarily choose to have their entire being erased and flung back to the random suffering of life. As many troubles as I have, they don't compare at all to the sh*tastic lives of the vast majority of the human race.

Re: Hell in Dungeon Fantasy
 

So personalities don't follow even the semi-predictable patterns of real life heredity and environment? Hopefully there's no magical way to tell what soul a baby has. Otherwise it might make sense to kill the born bad ones, to avoid the hassle. And that's rather disturbing.

Re: Hell in Dungeon Fantasy
 

Wow, I have no idea how you got that out of what I had written. It's not physical.

Do yourself a favor and read the book before you trash it.

I mentioned, but did not explain, the metaphysical aspects of the book and its treatment of 'damned souls.' That's because it wasn't on topic. I simply described one aspect of the book that could be reduced to simple form and applied in DF.

Re: Hell in Dungeon Fantasy
 

How did I trash it? I was lamenting the eating souls concept as too steeped in physical prey/predator eat or be eaten cycle of life. The main thing that makes souls a unique concept to me is that they are eternal. Take that away and it's just another layer of physical body.

Re: Hell in Dungeon Fantasy
 

heredity part is based on soul, placement is somehow based on your progress. but environment most deftly does have have effect that part of point of being reborn mortal free will while alive is a lot easier to 'advance' then on the eternal planes.

After a holy war with an arcane sorcerer who develop a spell the could actually destroy a soul. The priests of the dominate pantheon have banned all arcane magic the deals with the soul and the eternal planes. The dominant gods of the Parathon like the aforementioned Goddess of the Lifecycle really get upset at preists that pray for spell that would interfer with such fresh starts.

That not to say such spells are not possible for certain strong souls like keeping an eye out Dali lama style. But kill the babes on Shielded-lands on the criterion is not 'socially acceptable' ... a couple of the priests non-patheon gods a partials God who disperses free will might try to take out a few champions if born in lands they control.

Re: Hell in Dungeon Fantasy
 

Well, no, not really. Yes, it's predation. But souls eaten by the devils (in the book) are not simply obliterated. They are subsumed into the devil that eats them. That is eternal. Material metaphors like 'eating' certainly help, but they only go so far. You need to think in metaphsyical terms to grok what Lewis is describing.

This quotation may help explain it a bit more clearly for you>

Re: Hell in Dungeon Fantasy
 

So he corrupts them by ultimate brain washing? If I read that right, then eating is completely and utterly wrong and a horrible analogy.
If that isn't it, then I have not a clue what you or that excerpt mean.

Re: Hell in Dungeon Fantasy
 

What's the OP's DF campaign setting like in terms of metaphysics, mythology, and morality?

Knowing that may help posters trying to give good feedback and suggestions.

Is this a world defined by the struggle of Good against Evil?

If there is a 'Hell' is there also a 'Heaven'?

Re: Hell in Dungeon Fantasy
 

B-Dog tends to act as if his assumptions of roleplaying are the default. Giving an idea of what those are would be quite helpful, I agree.

To have demonic beasties running around at all does suggest that the powers of Good aren't that much more powerful than Evil if not equal or heaven forbid weaker.

That would be an interesting setting. The powers of evil are more powerful, so the fight needs mortal heroes to step up.

Re: Hell in Dungeon Fantasy
 

No, it's not brainwashing.
I'm either not doing a good job of explaining it or else you just need to read the book. Probably both. :)


As I understand Lewis' writing, Hell isn't a place that God chooses to send you for being a sinner. It's a place you send youself by rejecting God's grace, a place where you lose your will and your soul to evil. This has often been portrayed as burning in scripture, Church tradition, art and literature, but it may also be conceived of as being eaten.




I'm worlds away from being even an amateur theologian (my interest in religion is mainly in history and myth and not nearly so much in abstract ideas). You'd be better off consulting someone more knowledgeable if you want an in-depth analysis of all this, both the novel and the underlying ideas.

Re: Hell in Dungeon Fantasy
 

Yeah, that makes no sense at all. When a simple metaphor of "eating" does not help at all with a concept, you know you got a problem understanding it. :)

Shouldn't every proponent of a religion by necessity be at least an amateur theologian? How can you believe something if you don't understand it?

Re: Hell in Dungeon Fantasy
 

I don't have trouble understandting the metaphor, but it may not work for you. Burning and eating are just two ways to think of it. Both make sense to me on some level.

I am not acting as a 'proponent' of any religion.

Can we please get back on topic?

Re: Hell in Dungeon Fantasy
 

I meant that as follower and by such I thought that if you believed such that you would be able to explain it to me in such a way as I could understand.

I am a bit fascinated by those aspects of religion that aren't obvious or easy to explain to non believers. Those are the things that separate made up "unreal" stuff from the verisimilitude I'm always looking for in my made up religions.

I'm not trying to bring up real beliefs for any other reason, honestly.... At least this time I have no ulterior motive. :)

Re: Hell in Dungeon Fantasy
 

I am not sure I'd call myself a 'follower.'

If you really want more info on Hell...

http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/07207a.htm

But of course various Christian sects have their own ideas about all this.


Lewis describes Hell quite differently in another of his books, The Great Divorce. As in any book of the kind, what you have in that one is a literary imagining of perdition.

I tend to think of all human-to-human descriptions of the afterlife as being metaphorical by neccessity. We can use symbols to explain ideas, but this is not the same as actual experience.

Anyhoo, we really are drifting.


DF Hell might be a place that even the living can reach by gates or even just going down really deep holes, some sort of a huge cavern or dungeon filled with evil monstrobes and cursed treasures. Lots of fire, too.

Or ice.

Re: Hell in Dungeon Fantasy
 

I handle it by making the devils of hell sadists, which is why they torture people who go there.

They care nothing about justice, which is why being particularly evil might get you a better position in hell than if you hadn't been so bad.

I make it so that the good gods can't help it that people go to hell. They aren't powerful enough to stop it. If they willingly let people go to hell, their claims to being "good" would be hollow.

The limitations on the good gods also explains why they need help from PCs. By kicking demon butt, the PCs are making a genuine difference in the war between good and evil.

Harrowing Hell, that is, hackin' your way in to set poor souls free, is a very fine dungeon adventure for good PCs.

Re: Hell in Dungeon Fantasy
 

Not the way I see it. The way I see it, even if you're powerful enough to do otherwise, forcing people who want hell for their afterlife to go to heaven instead would make their claims to be "good" ring hollow.

Re: Hell in Dungeon Fantasy
 

My DF Hell isn't a place where many people want to go. It is full of mean creatures and pitchforks and there is way too much fire.

Re: Hell in Dungeon Fantasy
 

Protecting idiots from themselves is often called good though. Good gods aren't supposed to yell, "I told you so!" from on high.

Re: Hell in Dungeon Fantasy
 

I wonder about ideas of hell from those that naturally live underground. Might they not consider the sky, the place of horror and torment, and underground the safe haven?

Mole hell is a series of flat plateaus with impenetrable ground connected by rickety rope bridges.

Re: Hell in Dungeon Fantasy
 

Who says they are yelling that?

Maybe they simply respect the free will of mortals, and allow the mortals to choose between good and evil?

Re: Hell in Dungeon Fantasy
 

Respecting free will does not mean refusing to help when needed. And when is it more needed that when falling to hell?

I respect your free will, but I will still try to keep you from walking out into busy traffic. One could easily argue that even if they steadfastly say so, they can't truly understand their "choice" to go to hell. I know that in real life this kind of "I know better than you" judgement is really dangerous and skiffy. But hell is a whole different story.

Re: Hell in Dungeon Fantasy
 

Why are you assuming that the gods refuse to help? I see no reason to think that. These are DF style gods, right? So I'm guessing the 'good guy gods' sponsor holy heroes like paladins, perform miracles, direct their priests to warn mortals away from the paths of Evil, etc. That is help, Flyn.


Are you suggesting that the gods should try to mind-control all mortals to prevent anyone from ever making evil choices? That sounds pretty evil to me. But I doubt they could manage it, anyway. These gods are obviously not all-powerful (unless you want to deal with the problem of multiple omnipotent deities (and I don't think that would work well or be in the spirit of DF). What more could they do?

Re: Hell in Dungeon Fantasy
 

I'm trying not to assume anything as every setting will have different moral bases and powers of gods.
You were the one suggesting that letting souls rot in hell could be fine for good gods. I'm sure neither of us are trying to move the goal posts, but our lack of setting specifics are making them a bit too blurry to discus easily.

If B-Dog would be so kind as to give us some more setting specifics, we would have a much easier time deciding what the gods should and shouldn't do with whatever motives and morals they may or may not possess.

Re: Hell in Dungeon Fantasy
 

True, lack of setting specifics makes it tough.

But you missed something very important. I never wrote that the good gods were 'fine' with evil people choosing to be evil and so going to Hell. They may regret every soul lost to Hell. Or maybe the gods see it as grim justice. I wrote that the gods may respect free will. Enslaving mortals and shackling their minds to prevent them from ever doing evil deeds could no doubt save them from Hell. But wouldn't that actually be an evil plan?

Re: Hell in Dungeon Fantasy
 

But I think Flyn is right. We need to undertsand the morality, cosmology, and so on of the setting.

Without that, we're shooting in the dark.

Re: Hell in Dungeon Fantasy
 

Limiting free will as a means to ensure happiness is a very debatable scheme way off topic for this thread. Depending on how it's limited, I might consider it the only moral choice for gods setting up mortal races.
You're using the emotion laden word enslaving which I would consider enforcement against will rather than ensuring before creation of paths not possible for the created to take rationally.

Though that might touch on the concept that without temptation there can be no virtue.

That might an interesting opposite to the common nature of free will. It was created by evil gods to ensure that their future prospect truly chose to be evil rather than were simply forced into it through environments.
If good can be wanted for only good's sake, then why not evil?

Re: Hell in Dungeon Fantasy
 

Be careful, you might hit a bat that's in heaven without all those pesky sighted birds. ;)

Re: Hell in Dungeon Fantasy
 

How could good and evil exist at all without free will? That is, if no one can make any free moral choices, then how can anyone be held morally accountable?

Re: Hell in Dungeon Fantasy
 

I don't see anything definite shaping up until B-Dog can show up and answer some questions about his DF game.

Namely:


What is the moral order of the cosmos (in your game)? Good and Evil?

What are the gods like?

If Hell exists, what about other afterlifes/planes beyond?

Re: Hell in Dungeon Fantasy
 

That's hard to answer as I don't believe in free will, good, and evil as external real concepts.
Who cares about morally accountable when simply physically accountable is all we really can do?
Is someone not good if they simply cannot be cruel? Is someone that never gets truly angry not as good as someone that does and only occasionally fails to resist the urge to act violently?
That's a bit too deep of philosophical questions for a basic DF campaign in my opinion.

Re: Hell in Dungeon Fantasy
 

The hells I setup in my last fantasy campaign covered this fairly well, I think.

There were a collection of planes generally referred to as the "higher" planes and the "lower" planes, which were essentially planes that were closely related to certain moral concepts, mentalities, etc (I'll stick to the lower planes, since they're the most relevant). In a way, they are like the philosophical equivalent of the elemental planes. When a person died, their soul was pulled toward these planes with a strength that depended on how closely they seemed matched up with it. Normally, they would go to the one with the strongest pull (But it was always one they were closely aligned with). In fact, the planes themselves are believed to have come into existence as a result of mortal thought.

There were five lower planes, but the most important were Wrath, Torment, and Lust. In each plane, life is focused around a particular "theme," and in the lower planes, it focuses on it in a particularly harsh way. In general, the only way to survive and/or prosper is to embrace that plane's nature to the detriment of the other souls there. They're also often different than they were in life in some way; in some cases (More or less common depending on the plane) they might not even be sapient, with only vague memories of who they used to be as they try to survive in the hell they live in.

For example, in Wrath, every incoming soul arrives weak and naked. They weaken further over time. The only way to gain power is through pure, aggressive violence. It doesn't matter how powerful or weak the target is, just the level of bloodthirsty carnage and destruction they can wreck. Survive long enough, being brutal enough, and you eventually become distinguished from the vast hordes of "lost souls," becoming recognized as an actual demon. Survive even longer, and you gain more and more power. "Die," and after a period of agony as your soul comes back together, you come back as a fresh, weak lost soul. Weaken far enough, and you get a particularly nasty "death," with the added chance of coming back as something worse (A mindless beast or such).

Considering that Wrath is full of the most violent and vicious souls, it makes a hell that is full of bloody warfare, ruled over by the most bloodthirsty warlords. They think little of picking battles that might kill hundreds of thousands; most are lost souls that they'll be able to get back easily, anyway. The most frequented battlefields see so much death that the terrain is altered by the volume of corpses.

Needless to say, most of the souls there are in for a very long existence of being butchered again and again, and unable to do anything about it. They fight for the small hope of gaining a better life; the ones who don't fight (Or are unlucky enough to not get the chance) are beaten and mauled by bored demons, for fun when they can't get a proper battle. The ones that embrace that life to the fullest become the demons. The absolute strongest of them is the "god" of Wrath (And considering the power that it takes to become the god of one of those planes, and the huge power that brings in its own, the gods rarely change).

The other lower planes are similar in theme, though the details of execution vary greatly.

Re: Hell in Dungeon Fantasy
 

Interesting take, especially the allowance to be warped in order to "survive" the plane's nature.

That also might do nice things for why even denizens of heavenly planes aren't more active in the good vs. evil thing.

Re: Hell in Dungeon Fantasy
 

C.S. Lewis spent quite a bit of time contemplating why Hell exists... One might not agree with his reasoning, but it is consistent (and it supports combatmedic's position, as well).

“In the long run the answer to all those who object to the doctrine of hell, is itself a question: What are you asking God to do? To wipe out their past sins and, at all costs, to give them a fresh start, smoothing every difficulty and offering every miraculous help? But He has done so, on Calvary. To forgive them? They will not be forgiven. To leave them alone? Alas, I am afraid that is what He does.”
– C.S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain

“There are only two kinds of people in the end: those who say to God, "Thy will be done," and those to whom God says, in the end, "Thy will be done." All that are in Hell, choose it. Without that self-choice there could be no Hell.”
– C.S. Lewis, The Great Divorce

Re: Hell in Dungeon Fantasy
 

Choosing evil is one thing and choosing Hell quite another, just as choosing to walk in bare feet is not the same as choosing to cut your feet, choosing to have sex is not the same as choosing to have a baby, and choosing to commit a crime is not choosing to go to prison.

Moreover, even for the few demented souls that might choose Hell, given that they can't leave Hell, Hell is not a way of respecting their free will!

Re: Hell in Dungeon Fantasy
 

What about not letting one being eternally stick a pitchfork up the ass of another being?

Let's put the question in terms of our legal system. I am against a law that would allow jay-walkers to be skinned alive. Being against this law in no way requires wiping out past sins.

But it is false that anyone who chooses evil chooses hell, just as it is false that in a state that mandates skinning jay-walkers, those who jay walk choose to be skinned and must have their free will respected by being skinned.

Lewis is conflating choosing a thing with choosing the consequences flowing from it: You chose to jaywalk so you chose to be skinned alive.

Re: Hell in Dungeon Fantasy
 

"But He has done so, on Calvary."


You had full knowledge of the consequences, but you chose it anyway. You can't say you didn't know what would happen after you've been told what would happen.

Re: Hell in Dungeon Fantasy
 

Those who choose to jaywalk choose to risk being caught and being skinned. This is the ACTUAL logic that goes on in most peoples brains when they do things that have consequences they don't like: a (very bad) calculation as to the odds of whether they can get away with it, and a (often sloppy) calculation as to how bad the result will be, and again a (often inaccurate) calculation of what the reward value is.

People do this math all the time - the problem is that we are, as a species, spectacularly bad at it. We often think we'll get away with everything, that the consequences won't be THAT bad, and that what we want right now is really important.

Which is why there's very little deterrence effect from any harsh legal punishments: people who are inclined to commit crimes in the first place are the people who are especially bad at estimating the chance of escape and the value of the reward(s), so making the penalty worse doesn't affect their mental equations. They think they'll never get punished, so the threat of dire punishment just doesn't apply to them.

For instance, people who do 90 mph in a 55 zone with modest traffic: they think it's REALLY REALLY important for them to get wherever they're going 10 minutes earlier than they would otherwise, and they think they'll never make a mistake nor will they encounter someone else who will make a mistake that they will be unable to correct for due to travelling at ridiculous speeds. They also think they'll never get caught by the cops. So they see NO downsides to going 90mph while whipping in and out of traffic.

Re: Hell in Dungeon Fantasy
 

One could use the Chinese version where all are judged and the good go somewhere better.

Re: Hell in Dungeon Fantasy
 

I guess the big problem I have is that there are two types of Hell. One is for punishment and the other is a place of evil. In the punishment Hell the more evil one is the more they are punished and the more suffering they have. In DF Hell, the more evil and powerful one is the more power they are. Thus in the punishment hell one is less powerful the more evil they while in the DF Hell the more evil one is the more powerful they are.

Re: Hell in Dungeon Fantasy
 

And...why is that a problem? The place of evil is obviously more useful for gaming purposes.

Re: Hell in Dungeon Fantasy
 

But there are still people in Hell and still people being sent to Hell, so the problem remains. The question Lewis asked is what I want God to do. Well, one thing I want God to do is not let anyone get a pitchfork stuck up their ass eternally.

You can say that about a North Korean who protests against the government and gets life imprisonment for it. They chose to protest, but they sure as heck didn't choose to go to prison.

Likewise, to choose to make money is not to choose to pay tax, to choose to have sex is not to choose to have a baby, to choose not to pay protection money to gangsters is not to choose to get your legs broken.

Choosing to do something isn't the same as choosing the consequences.

Imagine someone defending themselves in court using the following reasoning: "I wasn't responsible for killing Murphy because Murphy committed suicide. I told him if he said another word, I'd shoot him. He chose to die when he chose to say another word. All I did when I pulled the trigger was refrain from interfering with his free will. But of course I couldn't interfere with his free will. What do you want me to do? Take away everyone's choices?"

That's more or less Lewis' argument.

Re: Hell in Dungeon Fantasy
 

No one is sent to hell. God just never made a one sided coin. His call to heaven that draws the worthy souls simply doesn't pull those who weight of sin along with, who then fall to hell. But weight of sin isn't added by him, the person's own deeds add it. He doesn't just let it happen either, he has warned people of the effect of their choices, and even provided paths to redemption to avoid such doom for those that start down the wrong path.