Silvanus forgotten realms9/12/2023 ![]() ![]() ![]() The answer by Quadratic Wizard is well-written for a generic D&D setting, but it was written before the question was tagged Forgotten Realms, so it does not fully address the specifics of the Forgotten Realms setting, where the fate of souls has been different from the generic treatments in the DMGs in most editions of D&D, including 5e.Īccording to the Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide (page 20): This is partly because D&D 3e generally asserted that animals were True Neutral in alignment, rather than Unaligned.ĭepends on the DM, yet there is some established FR lore to guide us. Animals are very specifically stated to qualify for petitioner status. of this book asserts that while it's entirely up to the DM, by default any creature with Intelligence and Wisdom scores of 1 may become a petitioner, a soul inhabiting the Outer Planes. It is where the most loyal animal companions go when they die. It is a domain of natural savagery and plenty. 141, it asserts that some animals may go to the Wilderness of the Beastlands: The Great Wheel cosmology is described in the D&D 3rd edition version of the Manual of the Planes. Dungeon Master's Guide p.43, "Putting the Planes Together", suggests that most campaigns require a place where mortal spirits go, which would in general include unaligned creatures. The spell description of raise dead ( PHB p.270) states that it works on any dead creature (other than undead), which implies that frogs can be raised, suggesting that their souls go somewhere from where they can be recovered. ![]() No rule defines where an unaligned agnostic frog soul goes after this.Its soul departs the Material Plane and travels through the Astral Plane.When a creature (including a frog) dies, its soul departs its body.All we know is from the first line of the "Bringing Back the Dead" quote: Most creatures that lack the capacity for rational thought do not have alignments-they are unaligned.Īssuming that frogs don't have a deity either, this means that there is no rule to cover this circumstance. 122, "Alignment in the Multiverse", unaligned creatures do not have an alignment at all: However, according to Player's Handbook p. These are the only two rules in the books that specify where a soul goes after death: the plane of their deity, or the plane of their alignment. In fact, Dungeon Master's Guide p.24, "Bringing Back the Dead", would imply that all living creatures have souls which depart upon death, as cited in the question: There's no particular rule that says one needs an alignment to have a soul. The rules on this are not specific in D&D 5e, leaving it up to the DM. I'm just curious if there is any "official" or published guidance, both from a mechanics perspective (for things like raise dead where the soul apparently needs to be willing and at liberty to come back), and from a lore perspective (like is there some plane with a ton of animal souls while most Outer Planes don't have any?).įor published lore, I'd prefer knowing if there's any information about the handling of unaligned souls within the Forgotten Realms just as that's the published multiverse I'm most familiar with, but if other settings specifically tackle this question that would be interesting as well. I'm aware that a DM can build the cosmology of their multiverse however they want (and the DMG specifically encourages such), and could make any reasonable decision here, even when using existing published settings. So what happens with the soul of something like a frog which is unaligned? Is there some plane corresponding to "unaligned", like the Outlands which correspond to neutrality? Does the soul get "stuck" in the Astral Plane when it can't go "to abide" elsewhere? Or do unaligned creatures somehow not have souls, or maybe they all worship a deity? If the creature didn't worship a deity, its soul departs to the plane corresponding to its alignment. When a creature dies, its soul departs its body, leaves the Material Plane, travels through the Astral Plane, and goes to abide on the plane where the creature's deity resides. 24), it describes what happens when a creature dies: In the DMG section on "Bringing Back the Dead" (chapter 1, p. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply.AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |