Eventually, after heavy losses on all sides in the Divine Plane, and the Mortal Plane having gone thru something of an apocalyptic era that wiped out at least seventy-five percent of the world’s population and which set back those societies that survived hundreds to thousands of years, the Treaty of the Divine Plane was agreed upon ushering in the Second Age of the world. The Treaty included the following:
The Gods of Malice and/or other assigned jailers of damned souls could have homes in the Demi Plane and abide by the rules that all gods must follow once there (see section on the Gods and the Demi Plane in the Encyclopedia of the Realm).
No gods were to travel to the Mortal Plane ever again nor were any of the gods’ immortal divine assistants.
The Hell/Place of Punishment would be changed to the Gray Waste (also known as the Plains of Perdition). Instead of physical torture, those in the Gray Waste would be constantly reminded of their crimes and those their crimes hurt.
And here came the great sticking point that kept the War going: How should mortals be fairly judged? How does one adequately weigh the whole of a mortal’s actions? What is more weighty: the quality of the harm or the quantity of the good? Should one terrible act undo a life that was otherwise good? Perhaps. What of intent? Someone steals to eat while someone else steals because they are selfish or indifferent. What if someone was taught that harm such as torture was acceptable to do to one’s enemies, but unacceptable to do to those in one’s group? What of that abused wife that killed her husband while he ate? The gods still had their differing opinions and agendas and unfortunately very few mortals live lives that fit neatly into either the category of pure malice or pure benevolence.
To deal with such questions and others where there was a lack of clarity about the nature of a soul’s mortal actions a Court of Review was created and set between the Gray Waste and the Paradises. In this Court of Review all souls that entered would have their case studied by a panel of divinely created beings of pure neutrality, logical, and fact-seeking. To determine where a soul should go one of the following guidelines was set forth:
Morality is the process to determine the effect an act, or some number of said acts, both intent and outcome, had, is having, and/or may have on the safety, security, and stability of society. This determination to be made using Facts (material evidence) and Reason. In this way the rules and wants particular to various gods would be set aside and only the evidence of the mortal’s intents, outcomes of actions, and effects of said actions would be looked at and weighed in-and-of themselves. Or so was the theory.
A simple majority vote from a panel of the Court could send a soul one of three ways: one, to some heavenly afterlife – even if it wasn’t the heaven of that soul’s particular god; two, to the Gray Waste; three, to the City of Purgatory (a separate plane, not part of The Demi Plane). In the City of Purgatory, or City of Second Chances, the mortal would be resurrected, given a job, usually starting out with some menial task, given shelter, food, water, clothing, and there in this city they were to stay for some prescribed length of time. After said length of time they would have their case reviewed again and with their time in Purgatory taken into account the soul may be possibly sent to some goodly afterlife if they had behaved while in Purgatory. Time in Purgatory was usually at least a century and could be up to a millennium.
Some of the more authoritarian or rigid gods still would not allow the souls of their followers that violated any of the said god’s rules into said god’s paradise – even for acts that seemingly did little harm, such as a mortal imbibing a small bit of some alcoholic beverage just once. The more compassionate and reasonable gods said that such souls were welcome in their paradises and so would be redirected there. In those cases where a mortal may have committed petty harm and on balance had lived a good and decent life these souls were also welcomed into the paradises of the more compassionate and reasonable gods. This included some of the followers of the gods of Malice that, on balance, had lived decent lives. “One should not be punished for what they believe, as beliefs can change. One should be judged for the actions they took that may have caused harm and to what extent.”
Before the War of the Gods there were as many paradises as there were gods not of malice. After, or due to the War, Compacts were made between some of the gods and under some of these Compacts the souls of the followers of any of the Compact partners could enter a paradise that had become something of a combination of the Compact partners’ original paradises. Some of these original, separate paradises had very similar themes and environs and so the new combination paradise looked very much the same all over; some were simply the original paradises now seamlessly side-by-side and had very unique sections for the souls to explore; some were wonderful and unique amalgamations of the original, separate paradises.
The gods communicate to their worshipers the rule that it is forbidden by all gods to physically harm another being for no other reason than said being worships a different god or gods then you. However, this harm did not include legal, political, and/or financial harm as it would not be tolerated for the followers of the gods of Malice to be allowed to openly worship their gods in peaceful society and thus bring more followers to said gods. Thus mortals were allowed to determine amongst themselves which of the religions to allow into their societies and which not.
It was agreed upon that the more mortals were graced with divine power the greater the chance for conflict. Thus, the number of mortals that became the chosen or touched by the gods was far less than before the War. Mathematical formulas were agreed upon in determining how many prophets/clerics, Tasked (formerly paladins) and Graced/God-Touched followers a particular god could have based on overall follower numbers for that god. This was all kept track of (numbers only, not particular individuals being given divine power) by divinely created beings a kin to those in the Court of Review. These beings were stationed in the Place of Congregation and available for any god to question at any time. More about divinely graced mortals in the section The Chosen of the Gods.
The Treaty of the Divine Plane did not end the ideological conflicts amongst the gods. Even before the ink on the Treaty was dry the gods of Ill Desire (subset of the gods of Malice) had been planning their next moves and had already begun a proxy war in the Mortal Plane. This proxy war however was not where the followers of one god would kill followers of another in some grand holy war. No, this proxy war is much more subtle and fought thru propaganda and intrigue, with plans unfolding over centuries, so slowly as to hardly be noticed (More on this in the section Gods of Malice).
Up Next: Chosen of the gods: Prophets (clerics); Tasked (paladins); and God-Touched
