My understanding is that when a mortal dies in the planes, your spirit ends up in another plane and is trapped there depending on how you lived your mortal life.
Mortal adventurers can teleport between planes using portals. But, Spirits cannot use the same portals... right?
So when a evil man dies and is sent to the lower planes and enlisted into the bloodwars for eternity, do the baatezu or tanarri give him a new physical body? or does he fight as a spirit?
The spirits of the dead become petitioners, who are usually solid beings of the outsider type.
Yes, they can use portals, at least in Planescape. Examples include the one that escaped from the Palace of Judgement in the Outlands into Sigil in the Planescape boxed set, and the one that left the Beastlands. And the Grixxit, an Ysgardian petitioner out for vengeance on the Lady of Pain.
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Not all evil souls are enlisted into the Blood War, but those that are become baatezu or tanar'ri.
I think SirRickles was using "spirit" in the sense of the soul of a dead mortal, not in the sense of an undead or incorporeal creature.
There are many spirits in the Outer Planes - for example, Arborea is full of nature spirits. They're mostly solid creatures, however.
When one gets absorbed into the plane, does he basically lose all of what he/she was? meaning.... basically true death?
The spirits of the dead become petitioners, who are usually solid beings of the outsider type.
Yes, they can use portals, at least in Planescape. Examples include the one that escaped from the Palace of Judgement in the Outlands into Sigil in the Planescape boxed set, and the one that left the Beastlands. And the Grixxit, an Ysgardian petitioner out for vengeance on the Lady of Pain.
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Not all evil souls are enlisted into the Blood War, but those that are become baatezu or tanar'ri.
I think SirRickles was using "spirit" in the sense of the soul of a dead mortal, not in the sense of an undead or incorporeal creature.
There are many spirits in the Outer Planes - for example, Arborea is full of nature spirits. They're mostly solid creatures, however.
Ah yes, thank you for clearing that up. I did indeed mean Souls.
So, if Someone is bound to the bloodwar and becomes Baetezu or Tanarii, would he still remember who he once was? or does he just starts anew? Baetezu and Tanarri can also reproduce without new souls entering the bloodwars too, right? That would explain cambions, alufiends and tieflings.
I was also wondering, for Upper planes creatures. Can a soul become an angelic figure much like how a mortal soul can become Baetezu/tanarri?
Well, the chant is a bit dark concerning what happens to a berk when he's absorbed into the plane. Some say he just adds to the plane's territory, making it grow in size. Of course, that's probably screed, considering the planes are infinite anyway. Others go on about how he is reformed in accordance with the plane... stripped of everything that doesn't fit into the belief system that the plane represents and made 'pure'. 'Pure' however, is relative, as what a Baatezu considers pure is about as horrifying as you can get. Chant goes that those petitioners that are so purified by their planes arise as the weakest form of native exemplar. Seeing as how you're more interested in the darker end of the spectrum, that would be Nupperibos for Baator, Manes for the Abyss, and Larvae for most everywhere else. Of course, like everywhere else, there are exceptions. Particularly powerful bloods might skip the first few stages and emerge out of the plane as fully formed exemplars of medium caste, although that is relatively rare. Now, whether or not these new exemplars remember their old mortal lives is up for debate, but the general consensus is negative. Then again, you have those petitioners that go to a power's realm. They usually merge with their power, quite ecstastically, I might add, and fuel its... well, power. More obscure theories go into a whole other transitive plane that completes the unity of rings and brings the souls, completely cleared, back into mortal bodies, starting the cycle over again.
So, there you have it. There's as much truth in there as screed, and the dark will probably remain dark for all of us that have still evaded the dead book. Good luck sorting it all out...
A small query then: assuming they are made "pure", does this act as a total cleansing, or might the soul possibly retain its "original" alignment in the next life, therefore...a foul acolyte of a dark god might, in the next life, while not being religious, might remember the feeling of power and instead lead a vicious, brutal army?
Just something I'm wondering.
mmm very insightful. That makes sense.
well.. for the record, I only speak more of the lower planes, since I know more about it. Certain video games (torment, NWN) only focus on those places... unfortunately. I'm very interested in the upper planes as well, just I am very new to this whole lore. heheh.
Yeah, It looks like the general concensus is that when you become a petitioner, you lose the memory of what you once were. So it almost seems that there aren't really THAT much of any consequence to death or punishment if you were evil, or any reward if you were good since you are essentially wiped clean after death anyways. That kind of sucks out a lot of the direness during life.... hmm...
That makes me a bit confused because on NWN, Aribeth's soul in Cania still retains her identity. Also in Torment, The Nameless One fights the bloodwar as himself and not as a nuberibo or lemure.
That was because her soul went, not merged. During NWN..the merged are mentioned as the "lost". As for the Nameless One; Who knows?
I'm not too sure about Aribeth, as I never got through the original NWN campaign, only the second expansion. Also, even if she did somehow retain all her memories, you must remember that NWN is hardly a definitive source for Planescape lore.
The Nameless One, as far as I remember, was still alive when he sold his sould to the fiends (thinking he peeled them, as he couldn't die). After he reunited with his mortality, he went off to fight like a good puppet, albeit still alive. Were he to die, his soul would either become a petitioner or reform as an exemplar larva.
A petitioner generally loses most of their mortal memories, but they can sometimes remember fragments of their former lives. They can also remember everything if their god or other powerful entity decides to return them - Dispater grants the shades who serve him in the Iron City of Dis their mortal memories in order to increase their suffering. In any case, they retain their former personalities - only their memories are lost, and those still remain in the Astral Plane.
What happens to petitioners who merge with their home planes? No one knows. Maybe it's like true death, or maybe they become part of the sentience of the plane itself, the vast chorus of lawful good, or chaotic neutral, or whatever. Maybe they become a piece of living landscape, like a hill with a human face; Rob Lazzeretti draws the outer planar landscapes that way on his poster maps.
I recently played Torment quite a few times in a row and the plot unfolds when you meet your First Incarnation in the Fortress of Regrets. He explains how his sins in his life were so great that he had a place in the Lower Planes waiting for him. But his regret forced him to change his nature, but he needed more time to be good and undo all the sins.
So he sought out Ravel to extend his life. Unfortunately it killed him in the process as his mortality split. Then his Mortality became a selfaware being and kept the nameless one alive and sent out shades to kill him and erase his memory each time he resurrects.
He was doomed to go down to the lowerplanes before his immortality took place. Though I never ran into any plot where he made a deal with a baatezu.
When he recombines with his mortality, he tells his companions that he accepts his fate in the lower planes and will accept his suitable punishment. Though he goes down as exactly as how he was in life. a bit strange. One of your companions (Fall From Grace is her name) is a succubus, and said that as long as you don't forget her, she will go down and find you, though it may take centuries to be reunited.
So I was confused, how do you have the choice to remember? I think it might just be specific to This game and not to Planescape as a whole.
I was always under the impression that, in most cases, peitioners had memories from their past life, but it wasn't terribly important to them. Sort of like a move that they once watched. They remember watching it, and most of the plot, but it doesn't have the same impact on them it once did. And, over time, they forget it.
I thought that's what happened to the great heroes that come to Elysium and never leave... they sort of gradually become petitioners and retain some memories.
yeah, it's kind of all confusing. If you ultimately lose your memory, it doesn't matter where you end up and how you live your mortal life, since once that is over you will be essentially dead anyways.
I don't see any reward or punishment or motivation for anyone wanting to worship any god or being aligned with any alignment unless if the person is a cleric.
That's true if you believe the continuity of memory is the most essential definition of self - but I don't think that's a valid definition in a cosmology where your 'self' is defined instead by the continuity of soul. "You" are your soul, not your memory.
That's definitely true - the Outer Planes aren't about reward or punishment. Bad people aren't punished and good people aren't rewarded by the planes - that would only be true in a cosmology that was biased toward Good. In the Great Wheel/Planescape cosmology, this isn't so - the multiverse is inherently neutral.
Now, generally speaking, the upper planes are a nicer place to live than the lower planes because the upper planes are filled with nice people and the lower planes are filled with mean people. But yes - someone who acted in deplorable ways in life might still be rewarded in death by an evil god, or live a comfortable life as a leader of fiends. The multiverse isn't a nice place - it's a neutral place. It's for the PCs to make a difference, because they can't rely on the multiverse to do so for them.
Btw I think that I remember it being mentioned somewhere (possibly in FC1) that Orcus remembered his mortal existence, not too sure though. I doubt that Baatzeu would keep any of their memories because of their rendering down to lemure status although there would of course be exceptions.
As for the upper planes, I think that I can remember the BOED mentioning that Zaphkiel was originally a mortal so there is precedent for mortals rising to the top in Celestia. Couldn't say for sure about the other upper planes though.
As I say I'm getting this all from memory so I could well be wrong.
Yes, all archons are former mortals. Eladrins and guardinals probably aren't.
I don't see why not. After all, the Outsiders are basically embodiments of their plane's philosophy, and we all know what fuels that. So I really see no reason for all evil exemplars to evolve from evil souls but only LG exemplars to do the same. I can particularly relate with the CG side of the spectrum, so I'm rooting for Eladrins being special too. 
Yugoloths don't. Baatezu and tanar'ri only do so because they were created by yugoloths - ancient Baatorians rise spontaneously from Baator.
Actually, if we're going with FC1 continuity, the 'loths created the obyriths, who then created the tanar'ri. But whatever might have lived in the Abyss before the whole Heart of Darkness incident probably arose spontaneously, without any need for petitioners.
Obyriths are explicitly stated to precede mortal souls. For that matter, tanar'ri and baatezu existed before the fiends figured out how to make more of their kind from petitioners - before that, they emerged directly from the plane (in the case of baatezu) or reproduced by mating (in the case of tanar'ri).
Personally, I like the idea that eladrins can transform petitioners into coures, but it doesn't officially say that anywhere (and Warriors of Heaven explicitly says they can't, though that book is so generally terrible it ought to be stricken from the canon).
For guardinals and rilmani, it makes sense if like the yugoloths they can't rise from petitioners - though it's possible that guardinals and rilmani aren't as obsessed with purity as the 'loths.
I was implying that those exemplars that don't directly evolve into petitioners can be created from mortal souls that join with the plane and emerge as the new form of exemplar. At least, that's how I always saw it. The source for life has to come from somewhere, and bare earth and rock just isn't going to do it unless you have something fueling the life force within. And if all the Outer Planes are so much older than the Prime, then where did the belief come to create them in the first place? That whole chant is just planarist screed, if you ask me.
How can the Outer Planes be older than the Prime? They are literally made of ideas. My belief is that the prime formed around matter from the inner planes that leaked into the prime via the ethereal. The Positive energy plane gave them life, and the Negative gave them death, and these beings began to think and form beleifs, and these beliefs created the outer planes and when the first of these beings died, their souls flowed through the astral and the first petitioners were born. The planar exemplars on the other hand, arrose spontaneously from the thoughs of Primes.
Exactly, Duck. That's how I imagined it.
Now, imagine the first barmy berk to go to Pandemonium. The plane, still completely empty, with one berk running around, body leaned forward and arms flapping in the wind behind him, going OOoooooOOooO! with deranged look on his face. Granted, he wasn't long for that place after the second petitioner, the emo kid with the knife, showed up...
Exactly, makes one wonder what the first petitioner on Elysium was like. I'm guessing he was a lot like Ned Flanders.
Anyway, I have a second thing I'd like to say, and this is one that a lot of people don't get. The planes aren't punishments or rewards. The way I like to see it, you go to the plane that wants you the most. If you're a good person, but the Baatezu want your soul more than the Archons do, then they get it. It's like a planar auction. The reason good people usually go to good planes/exemplars/powers is because good planes are willing to pay more for them. The reason evil people go to evil planes is because the good and neutral people don't want them, and the Fiends want everyone. It really pays to believe in something. Which is why, even in the afterlife, the Bleakers still get the short end of the stick.
Possibly I'm just one of the people who don't get what you're saying but I'm not sure how well the "petitioner auction" theory fits within the belief based cosmology. From what I've read I always got the impression that your alignment in life aligned you with the most appropriate plane and it was your commitment to that alignment/power (whether you expressly state that commitment or not) which drew you there.
Also I'm not sure what sort of currency you're talking about to be used to bargain with- faith? In what? Desire? The lower planes would be at a distinct advantage in this case given all the powers of greed down there. Anyway all the planes should have roughly equal power anyway given that they're all infinite so that makes the auction thing a bit moot anyway, the deciding weight to tip the scales would still be the force of will of the petitioner in question.
Naturally this can all change depending on which power you worship- you go where the high-up wants you to go.
Anyway, feel free to correct me if I've mis-interpreted your idea.
The auction thing was a metaphor (although in some places it can be the literal reality, too). What I'm saying is, your deeds don't determine what plane you end on, or how you're treated when you get there. Your deeds determine what plane wants you, and how they want to treat you.
Most people go to the plane that matches their diety, because the desires of a power pretty much overrule all but the most powerful bonds. Those without a god's favor usually wind up on the plane of their alignment.
Those who are drawn strongly to a plane that differs from their beleifs (maybe you made a pact with Pazuzu, or a powerful Gaurdinal really wants to "redeem" you for some reason), will become trapped on trapped on that plane. If the denizens of the plane the soul was alligned toward make an effort (raids into the abyss, soul bartering, etc), they can usually retreive the errant soul. Most of the time though, they don't make the effort, so the soul is stuck there.
If someone has failed to live up to the ideals of their diety or allignment, and no other plane wants them, they usually wind up wandering the Outlands or one of the transitive planes. More horribly, if soul was particularly appathetic, or their plane outright doesn't want them, they will wind up in one of the many soul veins scattered across Hades. Of course, even planes make mistakes, so exemplar from that plane will often go and find their lost believers and bring them to their rightful end. Other times, no one comes to save them, and these ones have to attempt to get to their plane by themselves, before another plane claims them.
Everyone agrees that not everyone on the lower planes is evil, not everyone on the chaotic planes is chaotic, and not everyone on the planes of Law is lawful. This also extends to the upper planes, which is why the Celestials are intrusive jerks.
Personifying the outer planes like that is great fun. It makes them entities and dreams rather than places. What I like to think of the outer planes as is "thinking places". In that I don't mean that the outer planes are hive minds or something like that, I mean literal interpretation of the known nature of these planes.
We know that most souls, not every soul, goes to the outer planes after life on the material. Their souls migrate, or travel on to the great beyond. The outer planes, therefore, is influenced by mortal belief in the simple fact that many mortals end up there. Its been pointed out earlier in this thread that memories are not a part of the soul, and this is true. Evidence supports it. But a soul binded to a body with memories in it, must be at least partially, influenced by it. Surely going through a lifetime of hardships and delights, interacting with other thinking creatures, must leave some mark on the soul in question?
If this is true, than the outer planes are influenced by mortals. Now, how much they are influenced is another point. If this influence have been going on since the creation, or connecting, of the outer planes and the material. It should leave a pretty big mark on the structure of the planes.
This leads to the point that since souls are influenced by the enviroment on the material plane, the thoughtmatter on the outer planes are partial products of all that went by on the material. Across eons of millenias, mind you.
Is this than proof that the outer planes are solid projections of the collective mind of the material? Maybe not, but it sure could be that the outers are a summation, or amalgam, of all the thoughts, religions and interests of the material plane since creation.
Maybe the outer planes are the struggle of the living world to find a collective ground to work on. Maybe its a fight to break up the original unity from the time when there was only one? It's the law vs. chaos fight on the grandest scale possible: The multiversal scale of right and wrong.
Whoa, lots to think about!
Me, I'm rooting for Elysian and Arborean petitioners getting to turn into Exemplars, too. Probably only after they merge with the plane, though.
But here's a question: some people become petitioners of their god in the god's realm, some people become petitioners in the plane of their alignment, and some people (in Celestia, Baator, and the Abyss) turn directly into Exemplars. Is there any reason why one person goes to their god's plane, somebody else goes to their alignment plane, and a third becomes an archon? Do the gods who reside in Mount Celestia, Baator, and the Abyss have no petitioners because all of them became Exemplars, or are there some people who go to those planes who don't become Exemplars? Maybe the people who follow a god who has a realm in that plane, but don't agree with the plane's alignment? Such as a NG person who worships a god whose realm is on Mount Celestia? Or a CE person whose god lives in Baator? Maybe that's the reason some gods choose to live on a plane not of their own alignment?
Is it only the most devoted worshippers of a god who end up in that god's realm, and everybody else just goes to the plane of their alignment, or does that only happen to people who don't worship any particular god at all?
If they have a god they worship above all others, they go to that god's realm. If they have no patron god, they go to their pantheon's land of the dead. If they have no pantheon, or their pantheon does not maintain a specific land of the dead, or worship no gods at all, they go to their plane of alignment.
All petitioners who end up in Mount Celestia become archons, unless their patron deity decides otherwise.
There are some who don't become exemplars. Generally speaking, petitioners of the Baatific deities don't become baatezu - only those who worshiped no particular god in life do. Some baatezu later on decide to serve and worship gods, but they don't start out that way.
In the Abyss, it's much the same way. Petitioners who worship deities take on some form that the deity chooses, which usually isn't a tanar'ri (but could be).
In Mount Celestia, the relationship between archons and deities is more cozy, but most gods give their petitioners unique forms. Petitioners in Moradin's realm almost always look like dwarves, for example.
Yes, those things can happen. A CE person who worships Takhisis would end up in Takhisis' realm in Baator. A NG person who worships Heironeous would end up in Heironeous' realm in Celestia.
There are no spirits or ghosts or other such beings on the Outer Planes. There's no ethereal to support them. Certain things are incorporeal, granted, but they aren't going into the ethereal. So, when a basher dies, his soul goes, via astral conduits, to the plane that most closely matched his alignment (and, according to some sources, straight into Asmodeus' mouth if he didn't believe in anything). There, he is either absorbed into the plane or becomes a petitioner. Petitioners are solid beings that are unique to their specific planes and usually don't leave them for fear of complete oblivion. They serve as the miscelleneous and unimportant NPC's in most PS adventures, kind of like the average farmers and low level guards on the prime.