If you slay a drow from Toril...

Also, according to pg 258 & 259 "The Afterlife", only the Faithless and the False are judged by Kelemvor. All other mortal souls are gathered from the Fugue Plane by a representative of their deity (usually an Outsider) and taken to their deity's realm.

-420

Because he isn't. He's part of the drow pantheon.

The Faerunian pantheon is a group of gods worshipped by the humans of Faerûn. The drow pantheon is a group of gods worshipped by the drow of Faerûn (and other places). They are not the same.

In Faiths & Pantheons, each pantheon has its own section. Lolth is described twice, once in the Faerûnian pantheon and once in the drow pantheon. Vhaeraun is described only once, in the drow section. Kelemvor is described only in the Faerûnian section. However, Vhaeraun is also described in Monster Mythology and the official list of Living Greyhawk deities.

This is important, I think. Vhaeraun is a multi-spheric god, worshipped on many worlds other than Toril. Outside of Toril, he has no responsibility to allow Kelemvor to judge the souls of his followers. Kelemvor has no particular power in the Outlands.

So it comes down to the question of whether the character's soul has to be vetted through Kelemvor simply because he was born on Toril, or if this only happens if he's in a realm or world under the control of Kelemvor/Ao.

It's conceivable that Kelemvor has some kind of claim on the character's soul simply because he happened to be born on Toril. Or you could argue that by venturing into the Outlands, the drow left any such claim behind him. Certainly Vhaeraun doesn't care about Kelemvor; they don't belong to the same pantheon.

I don't think that Kelemvor automatically judges humans born on Aber-Toril outside Faerun. Take Kara-Tur for example; the Celestial Bureaucracy would probably have a greater claim than Kelemvor for many souls, even some who died in Faerun (e.g. Shou). I am not familiar with the pantheons of Maztica or Zakhara, but I suspect that a similar argument can be made there as well.

Another way to approach the argument is to determine the path a soul has to travel in order to reach the afterlife. Since I can't find a definitive answer, I would simply defer to DM adjudication. The first major hurdle is to determine who sits in judgment of the dead.

1) The DM can say that all characters' souls must travel to the gates of judgment determined by where they were born- thereby suggesting that characters' souls are "anchored" to a realm/god of judgment upon birth. This may work well for standard (i.e. prime) campaigns, but you could run into serious problems applying it to a planar campaign.

2) Another option is to have a character sent to judgment based on their faith- allowing the judge within the pantheon or their representative (e.g. St. Peter at the Pearly Gates)- thereby suggesting that characters' souls are anchored to a realm/god of judgment based on belief. I happen to like this because it fits the Planescape theme better.

Another thing to keep in mind are burial rituals. The DM could also rule that characters' souls that they go to judgment based on their location upon death- this could make recovering the body of a fallen comrad very important. I also happen to like this as well because very few characters would want to abandon their steadfast companion to the Abyss only to have his soul trapped and become a bodak.

However, since Vhaeraun is worshiped by Faerûn drow those drow would be subject to the same fate as all mortal souls of Faerûn.

Would it matter if the drow in question took Vhaeraun as his patron deity before leaving Toril to travel the planes? I think it would because belief involves the accepted conditions of the local faith.

-420

I'm not familiar with a whole lot of the books cited and never grooved too much into the religions.

Here's how I'd play it:

The adventurers gathered in the chapel. The High Priest, much greased with treasure and quests, stands over the body of their slain comrade. Chants are intoned, burnished thuribles waved, sacrifices made.

As the chanting reaches a fevered pitch, a wrenching "GONG" sounds...a blue folded piece of paper appears on the corpses body. In magical script readable even by Grunt the Orc, the players are all summoned by name to testify on behalf of the deceased and the various powers who claim liens on his soul (It seems that those on Baator are claiming the souls of all the dead on their plane and there is a class action lawsuit...which the character in question is being used as a test case...)

Investigations, skullduggery, and a bit of behind the scenes mayhem ("We have GOT to knock off that baatezu lawyer! He's killing us in the Courtroom!)

Maybe it's time to find his first Mistress to whom he promised his soul when he was a toddler of 20 to get a quit claim...