Description
There are many tales of the Underworld and its many inhabitants, though the vast majority rely on mythology, religion, and folktales, for none have ever returned from this most dreaded place with their memories intact. These tales do little to soothe fears of this place, for they paint a picture of ashen wastelands, twisted trees, and haunted rivers.
Within the grey wastes it is said one awaits a meeting with
The Shadow, after which you will be escorted to your final destination. If you have earned a place in another realm by worship or deeds, then to that realm you will go. If you have not? Then your fate is either eternal limbo, or Oblivion. Of course, this is all simply religious dogma and impossible to verify thanks to the mind-erasing veil that rests between the world of the living and that of the dead.
The Realms of Death
There are many afterlives that the people of The Varolian believe in, though many have faith only in The Underworld itself, thinking these other realms simply rumours to bring the fearful relief. The list below is by no means extensive, and some think every single God holds their own domain for their faithful dead.
Fields of Elysium
The golden afterlife of
Zia. A realm of sport and nectar, of battles and feasts. Those who were great heroes and champions in life are granted eternal reward, where they may finally rest after a life of legendary deeds. If one does not seek rest, they have the mightiest and wisest of mortals throughout history to compete or converse with, and show themselves worthy forevermore.
The Bloodlands
A dark mirror to Elysium, The Bloodlands are
The Warmonger's Domain. The land destroyed by siege engines great and terrible to behold, filled with the unresting dead who exist only for violence. Those who fall to this ceaseless brutality will rise anew at days end, destined to kill and be killed until the end of time itself.
For many, the very idea of such a place is too frightening to consider. For others, especially the most devout of Praelan soldiers, this is a paradise - a land to feel the thrill of bloodlust forever, training and growing strong enough to one day wage glorious war against the Gods themselves.
Halls of Arkadia
Unique amongst the realms, for it is the only one people regularly claim to visit and return from. It is the land of Elven Gods, of verdant hills and eternal music, to which all Elves go when they die, and from which all Elves return, reincarnating anew. Why Elves go to a different afterlife than others is unknown, as is why they can reincarnate and remember this land. One unlikely theory posits that all Elves are simply lying when they speak of memories from past lives and the music of the Halls, in order to have some kind of claim of superiority over the other species.
Another, more likely theory to explain the strangeness of this realm, is that the Halls do not actually rest within The Underworld, but are instead part of
Óneira, The Dream World, somehow intercepting elven souls on their way down. Even if this was true, it would open up countless more questions about the nature of death and afterlife that no mortal could hope to answer.
The Aether
Boldest of claims about The Underworld is that the very stars themselves are part of it, due to the several myths in which the bodies of Gods and mortals have been sent into the heavens above after their deaths. The nature of this relationship is unknown, with neither priests of
Olsír nor those of
Haroch able to fully explain how or why certain creatures have ascended while others have not.
Oblivion
While details of The Underworld are forever unknowable, the proof of its existance rests within every undead, demon, and resurrected hero that enters the land of the living; souls go
somewhere when they die, and can return from that place on rare occassion.
Oblivion is not so. Belief holds that for a soul to fall to Oblivion means to have it utterly erased from all Creation, destroyed or lost beyond perhaps even the ability of God's to restore. Some scholars who study the concept of death have begun to suggest that a soul forgotten by all Creation enters Oblivion, as a form of ultimate, final death. Others think it exists simply as a dumping ground for souls whom Haroch finds unworthy even of the grey wasteland. Others still think "Oblivion" cannot
truly exist as a place, in the same way that "Nothing" could not; for these ideas are anathema to our very existence, things that only The Reaper himself could contemplate.
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