D&D setting suggestion: The Ancient Sands
So, we learned today that D&D's default setting has, instead of an entire meaningful afterlife for atheist[1] characters the way worshippers of gods have, those characters' souls get used as bricks in moldy wall somewhere-or-other off in some Astral Plane sub-plane or something: The Wall of the Faithless.
That's boring. I think there's way better ways to acknowledge the presence of players with characters who don't want to worship any of the gods in the setting - ways which grant the faithless dead afterlives as thematic and as good a source of plot hooks as any of the others. Honestly, there's a lot of better ways. Here's one for y'all's amusement, though.
Those who die without connection to any gods are sent instead to the Ancient Sands, a plane of trackless desert whose sun circles the horizon endlessly, offering no means of navigation. Those alive or dead that choose to wander the plane, however, find themselves coming upon first landmarks, then people, with those they encounter being connected to their own alignment. In this way, these souls find fates in keeping with their choices - the cruel surrounded by the cruel and the kind by the kind - with those who wish for stability seeking out a resting place and those who wish for novelty forever exploring the place and its people.
[1] In this case, worshipping no gods rather than thinking none exist.
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