Stairway to Heaven (Heaven part 1)
Jacob’s Ladder, William Blake, circa 1800 to 1806
"There's a lady who's sure all that glitters is gold
And she's buying a stairway to Heaven."
- Led Zeppelin
I just did a long series on Hell in ttrpgs, how it's been shown, where it got its ideas, what its for, where it is, names, and all that. I followed it up with a new design for Hell. Now, I'm starting a series for Heaven, the same way.
I started the Hell series with a video game reference and song quote. Hell, in many ways, is defined by its laws. So how do we define Heaven? It's often a lot more loose, but it has a lot to do with how we get there, what exists there, and what the experience of being there is like.
Why a stairway? Well, just like Hell Has Its Place metaphysically below the world, Heaven is metaphysically above it. Better, reached by ascension, by the effort of the climb, not the all too easy fall. The Gods look down on us from their lofty perches.
In nearly every society on Earth, the heavens are conceived of as above, high in the sky. Sometimes it's a mountain top, sometimes literal clouds, sometimes a world just like ours but better, and again, almost always 'up there'. Mount Olympus. The Jade Emperor's Court. Christian Heaven.
Unlike Hell, it's often a little nebulous. What does Heaven look like? For the Greeks, it was a series of palaces and estates atop a mountain. For Ancient China, an Imperial Court like the earthly one, but grander and larger. For the Norse, a mighty walled city 'higher' on the World Tree. It rarely is described as full or deeply as Hell. Hell (or its equivalents) is usually at least partially an afterlife, but until the Abrahamic religions, Heaven usually isn't. A few great heroes or mortals beloved by the gods might ascend to the Heavens to serve them, but most did not. Paradises (like the Greek Elysian Fields) are often in the main Underworld rather than the same place as the heaven of the Gods. Even Valhalla and Folkvangr of the Norse are reserved for the brave. So maybe knowing what it was like there wasn't as important. Heaven is where the Gods and their servants live.
In TTRPG's that's often not the assumption. Heaven is an afterlife for all virtuous souls and the home of the Gods and their servants. Every God has their own Heaven and their own afterlife, and they may not even be connected to the afterlife of the rest of their own pantheon directly . . . which seems weird, but really has a lot to do with the really artificial alignment system of early DnD and the Great Wheel cosmology that spawned. We need to deconstruct that, maybe see what Heaven is for in TTRPGS, where it came from, what it's like now. Then maybe we can make a better one.
So yeah.
I'm going to get into all this just like I did with Hell.
Join me on The Stairway to Heaven.
