Silverlight

When you inevitably meet your end, and all goes black, your soul will find itself free of it's mortal coil and make it's way to the realm of Silverlight. Only the dead can find their way to this place, and only the dead can make their way through the Gates of the Fallen. As you pass through the large blue portal, you'll find yourself before the Lake of Phantoms. The Soul Receptionist 's will tend to you while you're here, and prepare you for your swim across the lake. To reach the Kingdom of Souls, a person must swim across the Lake of Phantoms. Only those who lived a life without regret will survive this swim, and arrive safely at the other side. Those who fail, are absorbed into the lake and lost within it for eternity.

Gate to Unknown Worlds by Nele D

Souls in Silverlight

The Phantom’s Wake

When a soul materializes in Silverlight, it’s met with the sight of a sea of other souls. Endlessly expansive, the souls are reflections of their physical bodies, free of injury or scars. Each soul is incorporeal to each other soul, unless they choose not to be.
These souls are in what’s known as The Phantom’s Wake. Each soul waits here for a certain amount of time; determined by their natural lifespan. For instance, a human soul that died in its 40s would remain in the Phantom’s Wake for 40 to 60 years more before making its trip across the Lake of Phantoms, depending on how long that particular soul would have lived before passing of natural causes.
In some respects, the Phantom’s Wake is the backdrop for a second life for the souls. Many souls reunite with dead loved ones, awaiting their trip across the lake together. Others attempt to reconcile grudges they had while alive, and others still isolate themselves, counting on the living to revive them before they make the trip. Souls lucky enough to return to life simply vanish from the Phantom’s Wake, their souls dragged off to inhabit their mortal coil once more.

The Soul Receptionist

Though commonly referred to as one entity, the Soul Receptionist is made up of countless souls. These souls all share a single consciousness that governs when souls are sent to swim across the Lake of Phantoms. In some senses, the Soul Receptionist is a psychopomp. However, instead of ferrying souls safely across the Lake of Phantoms, it governs the time at which souls make the swim, and guides returning souls back to the world of the living. Some such souls are what are known as revenants – souls so strongly tied to some event or person, that they have the ability to exist without a mortal body. The Soul Receptionist guides them back like any other soul, with the knowledge that they will return once their business concludes.

Sinking in the Lake of Phantoms

Those weighed down by life’s regrets find themselves at the bottom of the Lake of Phantoms, becoming what are known as drowned souls. One of two fates await drowned souls. The first is consumption at the hands of otherworldly predators such as aquatic Xill. These creatures are, in actuality, extensions of the Soul Receptionist. Through consuming these drowned souls, the Soul Receptionist continues to grow to meet the increasing population of souls in the Phantom’s Wake. The only souls not consumed by the Soul Receptionist are the ones that are wrought from Silverlight to animate the undead.
Either way, drowned souls cannot return to life by any means, as their natural lifespan has expired before they even attempted the trip. Their only path to the realm of the living is through unscrupulous casters looking to use souls to fuel their own ambitions.
The act of raising undead is unagreeable to the Soul Receptionist – akin to stealing from their dinner plate. However, it either choses not to, or cannot retaliate, and so the practice continues.

Alternative Name(s)

The Kingdom of Death, The Lands of Judgement

Type

Dimensional plane

Owner/Ruler

Deshai