Abaddus
2007-05-22 20:36:27 UTC
#88975
Let's say that you are a priest of, hmm, Bane and you have someone at your mercy in front of a dark altar.
2 scenarios:
1) You tell them that they are to die at your hand in the name of Bane. Then you perform the sacrifice and associated rituals. Now does that person's soul get collected from the Fugue by Bane's servants to serve Bane for eternity because of the sacrifice? Or does the person's soul have some other chance to get away, for instance, because she was a faithful paladin of Torm for many years.
2) Instead of killing him, you offer him a chance to live if he swears his soul to Bane for eternity. He agrees to this and performs whatever rituals you see fit to bind the contract. Now is he really doomed to this fate, or can he turn around and just make some offerings to Helm or something to clear the whole thing up?
I post it here to encourage discussion, but I'd particularly like the DMs view of how this should be played out on this server.
Snoteye
2007-05-22 21:05:50 UTC
#88980
FOIG!
Ahem. Seriously, I've got nothing better to do so I'll throw in my 2 cents.
Abaddus
1) You tell them that they are to die at your hand in the name of Bane. Then you perform the sacrifice and associated rituals. Now does that person's soul get collected from the Fugue by Bane's servants to serve Bane for eternity because of the sacrifice? Or does the person's soul have some other chance to get away, for instance, because she was a faithful paladin of Torm for many years.
The way soul distribution works in the Realms I'd be surprised if the soul of a victim to a sacrifice was to be an eternal thrall to whatever god the sacrifice was devoted to. That is, assuming the character didn't willingly let herself sacrifice (which, I wager, is seldomly the case with paladins).
Abaddus
2) Instead of killing him, you offer him a chance to live if he swears his soul to Bane for eternity. He agrees to this and performs whatever rituals you see fit to bind the contract. Now is he really doomed to this fate, or can he turn around and just make some offerings to Helm or something to clear the whole thing up?
I'll argue that a soul is never "doomed," per se, but that there's always* a chance of redemption. Granted, if the character in question genuinely swears loyalty to a god radically different from her patron, it's going to take a hell of a lot more than "some offerings to Helm" in order to be redeemed (and it's probably not something she'd pursue herself, seeing as she personally shifted her allegiance in the first place).
*Used lightly. Exceptions are bound to exist.
MadCaddies
2007-05-22 23:22:37 UTC
#89003
I think Snoteye has nailed it, yeah.
Oroborous
2007-05-23 12:23:33 UTC
#89120
Book of Vile Darkness mentions that the point of a sacrifice isn't to give the soul to a dark god, but to dedicate a violent death to a god. It takes very powerful and unholy rituals to rip out someone's soul and offer it to a dark god. Your average priest can't do something that powerful, and so they just kill.
meow-mix
2007-05-23 17:23:49 UTC
#89164
It's the effect of the sacrafice, not the sacrafice itself that earns the favor in the eyes of dark gods. The fear, pain, rue, and possible humiliation of the victim, wholly the property of the god in question, offered by the act of the Priest who performs it. The spectacle, and the reminder to those who see and hear of it that disbelief or failure to heed the god in question comes with consequences. It's more of a demonstration of the god's influence in the mundane world via their priestly hands.
My two cents,
Meow-mix