Hell in Dungeon Fantasy

[Flyndaran]

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.

[combatmedic]

Originally Posted by Flyndaran

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.

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?

[combatmedic]

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.

[Flyndaran]

Originally Posted by combatmedic

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?

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?

[Flyndaran]

Originally Posted by combatmedic

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.

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

[combatmedic]

Originally Posted by Flyndaran

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?

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?

[combatmedic]

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?

[Flyndaran]

Originally Posted by combatmedic

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?

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.

[Phoenix_Dragon]

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.

[Flyndaran]

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.