Afterlife

Where did a mortal go upon death? This article describes the beliefs about the afterlife held by the inhabitants of the Forgotten Realms.

The Fugue Plane
When mortals died under normal circumstances, their souls departed their bodies on the Prime Material Plane and were pulled to the Fugue Plane. There, a soul resided in waiting, wandering about aimlessly, unaware that it had even died, until retrieved by a representative of one of the powers. When—after a time that on Toril would correspond to between a day and over a tenday—such a representative arrived, the soul would always recognize the outsider and would then accompany the being to its final plane of existence to live out the rest of eternity.

The god Kelemvor held sway over this primarily transitory plane, and he ensured that it was impossible to trick or convince a soul into following a divine messenger to the wrong god or goddess' realm.

Bargains & Raids
However, there was one exception. The baatezu had an agreement with Kelemvor that allowed them one final chance to bargain with souls. The baatezu were forbidden to injure or deceive the waiting souls in any way; however, they were permitted to offer them bargains to reject the patron that they worshiped in life in exchange for special benefits in the Nine Hells.

What the baatezu really wanted was more souls with which to create lemures, a form of devil from which more powerful kinds developed, thus building the power of their devilish armies. Most souls would refuse such an offer, of course, but if a soul had lived an evil life, sometimes the chance to avoid torment in the afterlife or to skip a step or two in the hierarchy of the Hells was appealing. Or perhaps the idea of service to the Lords of the Nine seemed better than obeying one's original chosen deity. The most powerful of mortals were sometimes even offered a chance for early promotions to higher forms of baatezu or the promise of some task or gift to be performed or given on the Material Plane in their behalf—for example, money to surviving relatives or a fiendish act of revenge on enemies.

Souls were a valuable commodity to demons as well, who used them to create the lowest forms of their own kind. The tanar'ri of the Abyss used a different method to acquire them—they stole them in periodic raids upon the Fugue Plane.

Petitioners
The majority of souls who died from the lands of Faerûn had dedicated their lives to particular power, their patron deity. When these souls were taken by the representative to their deity's divine realm, they were transformed into petitioners.

The Faithless
The Faithless were those souls who had never chosen to follow a patron deity or never believed in the gods at all. As such, they would never have a representative sent to retrieve them. Instead, it was mandated that they should enter the City of Judgment to be judged by the god of the dead. The judgment was the same for all Faithless; they became a part of the wall that surrounded the city. Sometimes, the souls were stolen from the wall in tanar'ri raids, but given enough time, a soul would dissolve into non-existence.

The False
The False were those who failed to serve their chosen patrons or who had betrayed the commitments to their prior faith. Such souls were also judged by Kelemvor, who assigned them a task in the City of Judgment for the rest of their existence. The most wicked and unfaithful among the false were actively punished. The majority of the citizens of the City were in fact among the False.

Advancement
What happened to a petitioner upon arriving at its final destination varied wildly by which deity that petitioner served.

Resurrection
Once a member of the the Faithless or the False had been judged by Kelemvor, it was impossible for that soul to be resurrected on the Material Plane by magical spells unless one of the other deities chose to directly intervene. Such a deity would most likely have to negotiate with the Lord of the Dead.

Alternate Views of the Afterlife
The illithids did not believe that they would travel to an Outer Plane when they died. Instead, they hoped for their minds to be merged with an elder brain to obtain immortality of thought. It was not clear what happened to the mind flayers' minds or souls if the elder brain were to be slain.

In other crystal spheres, the rules of death were different. For example, in some cosmologies, the souls of the dead were said to travel through the divine realm of the Raven Queen in the Shadowfell, before reaching their final destinations.