Petitioner

Petitioner is the term applied to dead people’s souls, which made it in some way or another into another plane of existence than the Material Plane.

Becoming a petitioner
Upon dying, a mortal’s soul was transported to the Fugue Plane. Once there, these souls counted as petitioners but didn’t have the attributes of one yet. They became full petitioners after entering the plane of their respective deities.

Other petitioners received judgement from Kelemvor. The standards according to which judgement was handed were whether, which and how honestly someone followed a certain deity during its lifetime. The outcomes were called Faithless and False.

Petitioner - normal
Normally, a soul of a dead mortal went to the Fugue Plane. Once there it waited until the deity it followed during lifetime or an agent of the same came and picked it up to the final destination, the realm, of its deity. In the deity’s realm, the petitioner became a full petitioner with all attributes of one.

Normal Petitioners’ attributes
A normal petitioner was a mindless being. They were physically re-modeled and stripped of all skills and abilities they accumulated over their lives as well as of any magical abilities they had by virtue of being a member of the race they belonged to during life but gained other attributes among others to not being able to leave their deities’ plane barring resurrection. And on resurrection they forgot virtually everything bout their time on the other plane.

Normal Petitioners’ duties
A deity’s petitioner’s job was it to serve as extras, as spear carriers, etc, in short as decoration for their respective deities’ realms to present it in some specific way. Exceptions were made when a mortal’s skill in life were needed for some purpose on the plane of the deity, they still couldn’t leave it.

For example, petitioners in Arvandor were re-modeled to look like handsome elves with exaggerated elven features, those who weren’t elves in life included, and were directed to spent eternity feasting and enjoying the beautiful environment.

Different Types
Different types of petitioners existed.

Faithless
A Faithless was a soul of someone who never believed in a deity, for example by not knowing that they existed during lifetime, or only paid lip service to it. They were sent to form the Wall of the Faithless as its bricks for punishment for their lack of faith by Kelemvor. They got eventually dissolved by the wall but could, at least in theory, leave the Fugue Plane.

False
A False was the soul of someone who intentionally swayed from his faith in life. These were judged and punished according to their deeds in life. The punishment was enacted by Kelemvor and Jergal but the content was determined by the deity the petitioner swayed from. It always consisted the aspect of an assignment as eternal labor force in the City of Judgement. The punishment went from something light as to work as an escort to the torturous sort that demons were incapable to come up with.

Kelemvor allowed a number of devils to randomly torture citizens of the City of Judgement. The only one who could stop it was Kelemvor but he was known for never doing this.

A False couldn’t be resurrected without the consent of the deity from whom the soul swayed from in life after the original deity went through a negotiation with Kelemvor.

Like the Faithless, the False were also capable of leaving the Fugue Plane, all at least in theory.

Others
Devils were allowed by Kelemvor to negotiate with souls while they were on the Fugue Plane. These souls could bargain for a position in the Nine Hells, starting at the bottom as a lemure or somewhere higher depending on the power of the soul and outcome of its bargain.

Demons were also tolerated by Kelemvor to attack and take some Faithless from the Wall of the Faithless and subsequently raid the City of Judgement to kidnap some False with them. Kelemvor, as mentioned before, tolerated this but moved against the demons when collateral damage became too high for him to endure. Petitioners who were brought into the Abyss became manes and were unlike other petitioners capable of leaving their plane, in other words the Abyss.

A vhaerath was a special type of petitioners who not only retained their skills in life but could also leave their deity’s, Vhaeraun’s, realm Ellaniath.