Alignments [Answer to a Player Question]

Player has asked about Alignments and which ones are allowed for Player Characters.

Alignments don't seem to be as big a Thing in 5e as they used to be; the PHB doesn't even seem to mention them, and I don't think they're used for spell restrictions anymore. Or, let me put it another way: if they are used for spell restrictions, I can't find it codified in the spell write-ups.

The gods do have Alignments, and I have a sorta plan of mapping the Blessed 18 to the 9 possible alignment combinations (a god and goddess for each) but that hasn't happened yet because other things have taken precedence time-wise.

Alignment does still come into play during death. When a mortal dies, their soul goes to the plane of their deity. If they are non-religious or they refuse to go to their deity upon death (the "refuse to go to their deity" is a home rule of mine, but one which I would think would be a remarkably rare occurrence), they bounce to the Alignment Plane which best fits them.

So in other words, if you worship Wee Jas all your life then on your death you either go to her OR you have a dying epiphany renouncing your religion and end up in, idk, the Chaotic Good Plane. (Or wherever.) Do you reunite with your loved ones if they had different gods or alignments? Probably not 100%, no, but there may be some visiting arrangements between the astral planes.

Questions which remain uncertain to me still, and which I'm kicking around mentally: If you are sworn to a minor god, do THEY have a plane? Answer: Maybe? Or they might reside on a shared plane with a major god; I can see Hamity being happy in Lastai's plane, etc. I don't think your character would be fully up on all the nuances, since you weren't at your plane of residence for very long.

Alignments also matter for resurrection purposes: Souls are informed the name, god, and alignment of whoever is trying to resurrect them. So while you may have willingly allowed, say, Evuul the Cleric of Chaotic Evil to rez you (because hey, free rez), it's more likely that your corpse was handed off to an alignment-similar cleric to raise. (The nice thing about the Temple compound serving all the gods in one close locale is that it's easy enough for Evuul to tag out with Honore Priestess of Pelor if the rez spell isn't working.)

Well and also, to complicate things, different gods hold different levels of importance in different areas and different cultures. Hamity is a minor goddess in game because this particular location doesn't really recognize her much, but canonically in some cultures she's a big deal. (And yes, I know, in your game the only canon that counts is yours, but dammit I will FITE for my goddess of sparklies and bubble baths!)

I kinda feel like maybe rezzed characters don't have the clearest memories of the afterlife, just to avoid the hassle of making a hard-and-fast ruling about it?

That might be best, actually. Like, you have a fuzzy recollection of the afterlife, but it's like trying to remember a dream that faded on awakening.

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(Among other reasons, an intrinsic part of the human condition is not knowing for sure and certain what happens when you die; the question of what people and society as a whole might become if we did know is fascinating from a philosophical perspective, but in the context of a game it gives me a headache so yes let's not, lol.)

YES, there is quite a lot of fascinating implications to the gods and afterlife being objectively-and-verifiably real, not least of which I'm still itching to roll up an atheist who is just really done with all this malarkey.

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"Just because they exist doesn't mean I've got to worship them! This tree exists too, and do you see anybody - okay, okay, bad example. Sorry, druids."

So I havent ever really considered allotment or even gods yet as it's the first time I'm.playing a cleric and first every time using alignments (I'm a 5e dm and i haven't ever seen on mentioned much outside of notes for how to rp certain enemies and NPC's)

A longer post on this topic is here.