Death of an Atheist

[Gravemind]

Ok, in another thread which was later locked for an unrelated reason, I mentioned that when an Atheist dies, it is permadeath, though this is not reflected in-game yet because there is no effects of religion programming.

I got replies along the lines of "This is complete nonsense. Seriously dude."

For my next trick, I would like to bring your attention to a rather nice book - "The Four Revelations of Dakkru" by Londris Kolaim. You can find this book, along with a few others, in your local hell.

And I quote - 'Three. We gods shall no longer spare the faithless; you who do not revere a deity or follow a sacred path, you shall have no succor, and you will be folded into Me as your spirit shrivels. All who die the true death are Yliakum's gifts to Me.'


The books also details the nature of Dakkru's curse - that a small part of you is taken away in order to power the black crystal.

I had previously assumed that Revelation 3. meant that when an atheist dies, they are taken entirely into Dakkru / the black crystal and are thus denied resurrection or probably not even capable of it when the entirety of their 'life essence' has been taken away.

We will now open this to discussion, and hopefully some input from the settings team

[Dajoji]

Your post was probably better placed here. However, I do not understand your logic. Nowhere in the passages you quote does it say that being an atheist means that when you die you perma-die.

What that book says is that anyone who enters her realm has to pay in order to get out, hence the curse, and those who die permanently, whether they are atheist or religious, belong to her, since she rules over death in Yliakum.

Edit: Ok. I think I see your point now. It is valid to infer that true death awaits those with no faith who should they enter Dakkru's realm since no god will bail them out. It remains, imo, possible that the punishment it speaks of be something else as the book is written now but it might be edited in the future as the game develops. When or if that happens, I'll be (once more) completely wrong.

[Timmothy Perriwinkle]

'Three. We gods shall no longer spare the faithless; you who do not revere a deity or follow a sacred path, you shall have no succor, and you will be folded into Me as your spirit shrivels. All who die the true death are Yliakum's gifts to Me.'

That right there. Not sparing the faithless, I would assume means that those who are faithless will not be spared.

[Prolix]

That is ambiguous at best but it could also be taken to mean that they will suffer the full effects of the curse while faithful followers of the various gods will have some of the effect negated.

[Gravemind]

especially note the part about "will be folded into Me as [their] spirit shrivels"

That's before she talks about people who die by means that usually end in permadeath coming to her

[Prolix]

Everyone gets folded into her, atheists just that much faster.

[Xillix Queen of Fools]

Assume gravemind is correct: discuss.

Assume Prolix is correct about it being ambiguous: discuss.

[Vannaka]

To me it does sound like it means permadeath, but I don't like it.  It makes perfect sense that the gods wouldn't grant an atheist exit from the death realm, but that also means it's nearly impossible to play an atheist character in the long term.  Also characters can be more than what is specified in the character creation, so this could never be implemented with mechanics really... for instance, if a character is created as an atheist but then later has something happen that would lead him to follow Talad, he is no longer an atheist, even though he was created as one. (i know it's a bit off topic since we weren't talking about mechanics, but w/e)  So i guess basically it makes sense that all atheists would die permadeaths, but if they really did then nobody would play as one.  Just think, if atheists died permadeath always, we'd have no Orgonwukh!

[Prolix]

Assuming atheism means you character is deleted when you die (permadeath) Then you will have atheists paying lip service to one god or another. Can a system really be put into place that would distinguish this from true faith? Well you can make it so that characters have to continually do favors for the npc faithful (priests and notable adherents) in order to maintain their status but this would either alienate the role play crowd or require many gm events for them to satisfy the requirements. Not all of them, of course but the more ardent "I wanna play with people not game mechanics" crowd. I am not certain how large this contingent really is.

I really suppose it depends on what is required to be considered a parishioner (if you will), Bilbous has dome some favors for laanx and even made a donation in the course of one of these his faction is fairly high. He does not consider himself a follower, even so, his talad is almost the same and his xiosia is increasing. He just gets bored and does errands for people without giving much thought to who they are or what they want. He doesn't always complete them satisfactorily, some things are less interesting after he finds out what they entail.

I am not entirely sure to what extent the coders want to enforce this, it would seem to me that there will be less problems with my original interpretation. Even so having any such system might require gm involvement at an unprecedented level. What is to be done with the mechanistically pious character who is most blasphemous in player to player conduct? The NPC's will treat him as a saint and nothing could be further from the truth.

On further thought just disallow it as an option if it offends you so much.

[Dajoji]

The system could be activated by GMs/Devs per request of the players with a sort of flag. If they wish to play an atheist they can file a petition the moment they become one. Once activated, if they die, they perma-die (maybe locking the character so it can't be loaded after death, but keeping the option open to delete it). They could also petition the removal of this flag if they, at some point in their RP, join a religion, obviously while still alive. Maybe...

[Raekh]

Firstly, I suppose other gods are more powerful than Dakkru, why else would Dakkru be prevented from keeping everyone over there, say all Laanx- and Talad-believers as well?
So they grant Dakkru the right to release the ones believing in her, and granting her the right to keep the ones not believing in anyone.

So there is no hope in Yliakum? None of the two major gods would intervene in Dakkru keeping a "soul" that still had all chances to be a Laanx or a Talad follower for instance? What if a baby died, still not believing?
The main deities allow minor gods to please the people by outstanding presents, and as well allow another minor god to take away their future sheep?
Perhaps someone should redefine these main gods as puppets that like to be fleeced?

I dont like it, sounds too much of a world of evil gods, all of them, cold and relentless, and belief would be caused, or say forced, by mere fear instead of fate of things could be better one day.

[khoridor]

It is not the gods which must be defined and understood, but religion.
First, it doesn't make sense to choose one god to worship when one isn't a priest. This is misunderstanding polytheism. One can worship all the gods he wants, or none, since that's the priest job to worship while people are busy working. There's a big difference between faith and worship.
Then there are irreligious people. They never pray, never give to the temples, etc. Their main source of trouble should come from priests, not the gods.
Then there are people who insult the gods. For those, direct punishment from the gods may be considered. Who punishes, how and how often should be deduced directly in game. We can witness Laanx smiting people once in a while, but we cannot assume why Dakkru keeps people alive or not. We know what the priests tell us, nothing more.

In short, part of the setting team may know things about the gods, but what they know is not what we are supposed to know, what they will write in books and dialogs. Interpretations and polemics must exist inside religion, between priests, even in the same temples. And let's not forget that priests will make up things by themselves, for their own purpose.

The fact remains that all this is RP-only. In the absence of a system that measures worship, death shall be the same for everybody. Such a system is probably impossible anyway. If atheism doesn't make sense, it is not because of game mechanics. Monotheisms first cared about heresy and paganism, not atheism; about different, concurrent religions. PlaneShift has, apparently, only 1 pantheon, and I think that the debate should shift to the proper basis. The gods don't need proselytism; the concurrence, if any, is political and social between the mortals.

I, for one, would see the choice of a god removed from character creation (although not from the events), and let characters be religious or not in game.
I would also like to be able to identify priests. Certainly, not everybody can be one. The system opens all skills to everyone, but there are ways to separate the jobs. Most unclear is what separates a wizard from a priest. Maybe a Devotion skill would do? With predefined spots in the temples (akin to forges and ovens) where priests spend time praying, lighting candles for people, rotating bells, copying sacred texts, whatever... (Ideally something different for each god).

With these two steps, the issue of atheism is already gone. No more mislead from character creation, and no more confusion between faith and worship in game. Priests worship full time, others worship when they care to, or pretend to care, and everybody is happy. What is left to do is the gods' direct involvement into mortal affairs. There is no law enforcement yet, faith enforcement is not more urgent, and both will stay the same for a while: GMs discretion, privilege and availability.

[Donari Tyndale]

Strong atheist=refusing to acknowledge the existance of any god:
These chars deserve to die permanently. It takes a great deal of ignorance and stupidity to get to this point and to ignore the obvious presence of gods throughout Yliakum, and if they convince more characters of their points of view the gods are in danger of being forgotten. Or even worse. The people of Yliakum may fall into the hands of the BlackFlame.

Weak atheists=People that know the gods exist but do not worship them:
These people deserve nothing but pity. The gods reward those that follow the sacred paths greatly (Xiosiamas ) and it requires a lot of bitterness to deem any god not worthy of following. However, these characters do also diminish faith in the gods and their hearts are subject to corruption. If they are unwilling to change, death should be permanent.

Polytheism:
Every being in Yliakum is polytheistic. Why not thank many gods for what they have done and receive more benefits? Only few, mostly the priests, would have tendencies towards one god or the other. The gods do not fight each other any more. Why should their priests quarrel? Some might, true. But the majority would not. If you are not chosen as your god's favourite follower, would you be willing to risk the wrath of the other gods?

[Irgendwer]

I play games for the entertainement value. The entertainment value of PS is already pretty low to me, due to countless encounters with so called "roleplayers", who constantly drop out of character to lecture me in [bracketspeak] on what they consider to be in character and how I "must" act (the idiocy here is overwhelming).
Religions in real life are a scam and I strongly oppose to them. Make it mandatory for me to follow one in PlaneShift and behave in what I would normally call idiotic ways, then the entertainment value drops even further. I don't really want to have to say "Hail Xiosa" in public once a login day, just to avoid permadeath.

As far as my character is concerned, gods do exist. Big deal, so do rocks. I don't worship rocks either and I couldn't care less about what is written in religious tracts. These were obviously not written by the gods themselves, but by worshippers who have an agenda of pushing their religion and hence the truth value of the texts is questionable at best. Even if the books were directly dictated by the deity in question, this would still not matter to me, as gods can lie too (see BF, which at least honestly admits being full of deceit). The best any god can expect from my character is a lip service and even that will only be given if it is rewarding.

Furthermore, I'd like to mention, that the PS gods are anything but almighty and infallible. They may be powerful beyond mortal means, but they are still incompetent in countless ways:
* Talad made Laanx's boobs fall off by accident
* Laanx then decided to bitch about not being a women any longer and refused to see a plastic surgeon (yeah, right, talk about destroying your own argument here ).
* Xiosa is out of her mind anyway as shown be recent events. Her followers double so. Imagine that brain dead fool sitting in his secret garden for example. Whenever some insects start eating his pretty little flowers he insists on not simply stomping them because life is so sacred. Instead, he sends you on an assignment to kill a herd of consumers to destill a repellant, that will make the insects starve elsewhere.
* Dakkru ... A contradiction in herself. Claims to be the goddess of death, but otherwise refuses to be true to herself and show the signs of death (like shutting up and let the living go on with their lifes).
* Black Flame ... wears bunny slippers and probably got totally lost in planning and scheming for no purpose by now.

Nobody is perfect, the PS gods double so. Neither of them is a true creator god and none truly stands above anything (especially not it's fellow deities), so it does not make much sense, why any should have true dominion over life and death (Talad almost killed Laanx, remember?). Ever thought about the possibility, that Dakkrus curse in reality is just a little souvenir, people get who have the will of escaping the realm she claimed as hers? Maybe, the gods don't bail you out of DR. Them doing so is just some PR lie, told by their priests (after all, worshippers make donations, donations pay the rent, the more worshippers a priest can gather, the more wealth/influence he gets). Ever seen a god actively helping you to get out of the DR? Me neither and considering the amount of tourist traffic in there, I doubt that any god would even want to get personally involved in the check out process. So, even if the exit gate was somehow powered all gods mysteriously working together for no obvious reason at all, there would still be enough room for any non worshipper and atheists to slip by.

[Mathy Stockington]

Irgendwer I do agree with you. I would like to see if you could come up with an alternative 'story' that would be more to our liking.