Fate of the Dead

And now that we're dead... What now?

When the End of All Things came, it wasn't just the world that broke - covenants that had governed reality since the dawn of time were irrevocably broken. Chief among them were the fate of those who died. No longer were there any sort of heaven for the virtous, no hell for the sinful. Now, when people die... Where do they go?

by http://www.tribalartasia.com/

The dead now linger in Ithekshem after their demise. With no place to ascend to and no gods left to shepherd them to an afterlife, souls instead remain. At first, they remain much like they were in life, becoming ghosts or specters, but as time passes the bonds that hold such memories together begin to unravel.
Depending on the strength of the ego, this process can take days or years. As a soul comes apart, they begin to lose parts of themselves, becoming less distinct, less themselves. They lose their shapes, their memories, their self - in the end, they dissipate and sink into the background hum of the world. Though invisible to the naked eye, soulstuff settles and becomes a force of energy around Ithekshem, usually spread out across miles but sometimes it pools in great heaps, typically around battlefields and disasters.

by Pixabay

As souls dissolve into the roiling, unquiet force, much of their sentience disappears. Powerful magic can bring it back in parts, and sometimes flashes of memories, emotion, or strong personalities will suddenly scream to the surface when everyone least expects it. To mages - and necromancers especially - Souls are a potent source of magic to tap into of manipulate. For others, it is a source of sustenance, allowing them to feast first on flesh and then the lingering miasma of dissolution that follows.