Death and What Comes After

As described in The Structure of the Universe, the world is made up of three components. These are the Physical realm, the Dream realm, and the Spirit realm. Nearly all living creatures in the world contain elements of all three realms as well. They have a physical body, known as the Soma, a dream or mental self called an Eidolon, and a spirit, known as the Pneuma. Death happens when these three components are no longer able to remain a cohesive whole and separate into three independent components. This article will discuss what happens to each component of a living being after death, and also address the rare exceptions that can occur when death follows an atypical pattern.

Physical Death

This is what most people think of when they talk about death, and it is by far the most common way that living creatures die. Physical death occurs when the Soma can no longer sustain the processes that allow it to remain connected to the Pneuma and Eidolon. Without the physical anchor, the three components of the person split apart, each now following their own paths according to the forces of their respective realms. The Soma is the simplest case - it becomes an object, and its ultimate fate is dictated by the physical forces of the world. The fates of the Eidolon and the Pneuma are more difficult to discern from our vantage as living beings. To the best of our understanding, Eidolons will typically pass on to one of the Underworlds, while the Pneuma will migrate through the spiritual realm in a manner I will describe below.

Eidolons and Underworlds

Nearly every culture in the Great Ring has an idea of what happens to their dead, and most of them involve some kind of Underworld or Land of the Dead. While underworld is not always an accurate description for a particular land of the dead, it is the most common label used for them collectively. Like all ideas, these underworlds exist in the Dream, and are the destination for the Eidolons who are associated with them. This association is forged during a person's life - by participating in the cultural practices around a particular underworld, they build connections that will pull their Eidolon to it once it is untethered from the physical realm.

The details of each underworld are infinitely variable and dependent on the beliefs of the cultures that created them. Some permit the eidolons the ability to return to the physical realm under specified circumstances, while others are tightly locked away. Some are places where the deeds of one's life are punished or rewarded, and others are quiet places to wait until all memory of a person has faded from the world, and still others combine both of these and several more concepts as well.

What they all have in common is that the inhabitants of an underworld depend to one degree or another on being remembered by the living. The nature of the Dream is that eidolons gain power from collective thought and belief, and most especially from memories - both their own, and the memories of those they left behind. The Egregoric Force dominates the existence of eidolons, shaping and warping them into the mold of those memories. An Eidolon who spends a long time in one of the underworld will slowly become the version of themselves that dominates the popular idea of them. For those who were famous in life and after their deaths, this process can be quite dramatic and sustain the Eidolon for millennia (or even lead to their ascension - see Apotheosis below). For most people, the process is less extreme, and while they are shaped by the memories the living hold of them, it usually does not overwhelm their own sense of self.

As that memory fades and the living think less about a particular person, their Eidolon fades also in the Underworld. Most people will become shades within a few centuries of their deaths, as only traces of them persist in the memories of others. Shades can linger indefinitely, but will eventually fade away entirely, or merge with other entities to become pseudo-eidolons. Pseudo-eidolons are the aggregate ideas of a particular time and place, stripped of specific memory and rendered generic amalgamations of all the ideas still held about that period. Pseudo-eidolons frequently establish themselves for a time as their own location in the Dream, and can be visited by Dreamwalkers who wish to visit the idea of an ancient city or island. Even these will eventually become shades and fade entirely in time, unless they become true myths and legends that are sustained by the stories told about them.

The Migration of the Pneuma

The natural forces of the spirit realm are difficult to describe or even comprehend for entities not purely of that realm, and all the following descriptions must be understood to be approximate metaphors used to attempt to describe phenomena that cannot truly be put into words.

While a person's Eidolon passes on to their appropriate underworld, their Pneuma follows a different path. Unlike the Eidolon, the Pneuma carries none of the memories or identity of the person. Instead, it resonates with the essential nature of the person that was created and shaped by their actions in life. Additionally, it is bound to the pneumas of all the other entities that held significance to the person in life. The destiny of the Pneuma after death is shaped by an interplay of these two factors.

The resonance of a person's Pneuma causes it to migrate through the spiritual realm towards those entities or areas that are most in harmony with it. At the same time, the connections with other pneumas limit that migration, pulling it towards the people and places that it shares bonds of significance with. Many people have reported the sensing the presence of a loved person after their death, and this may be the action of their pneumas interacting on the spiritual realm. Bonds of significance will fade over time unless they are maintained, and the influence of these connections will play an increasingly smaller role the longer a person has been dead. Under normal circumstances, the rate of this decay is largely dictated by the living - they can hold onto their connections, or to release them.

The ultimate fate of a particular Pneuma can vary. Some are believed to become one with their gods, or with other entities with which they share a resonance. Others will reassociate themselves with the physical world, joining a newborn Soma and Eidolon to form a new person. There are stories of groups of pneumas so tightly bonded to one another that they repeatedly reincarnate in proximity to one another and recreate their bonds in multiple lifetimes - it is unknown if this actually happens, but it does not appear to be the general case. In the end, we do not really know enough to say where any particular person's Pneuma will go after death, or even what all the options might be.

Soul-Death

In some rare instances, a person may undergo soul-death rather than (or in addition to) physical death. Soul-death involves extensive trauma to the Eidolon and the Pneuma, and most often involves magical forces. While it is possible to inflict soul-death through mundane means, it involves perpetuating extreme atrocities against the person, and even then it is unlikely. The most common source of soul-death is due to an interaction with a demonic entity who is capable of attacking a person's Pneuma and Eidolon directly.

When someone suffers soul-death, their Eidolon is destroyed and the energies of their Pneuma are scattered. The impact of soul-death upon the world is palpable. All those whose pneumas were bonded to the destroyed person will feel the impact of the soul-death as their connections are shattered, no matter how far separated they were at the time. At the same time, the destruction of the Eidolon causes the memories of the destroyed person to fade, as they no longer have a focus point in the Dream. Their actions are ascribed to other people, and after a surprisingly short time only those who had the strongest associations with them will remember them at all.

Soul-death leaves a gaping hole in the world where the person used to be, far more than physical death. Mysteries will spin up around that hole, as empty places in the collective memory become strange riddles for those who seek to explain them. At the same time, the shattered bonds will leave those behind with an overwhelming sense of loss, amplified by the way the soul-dead person has been forgotten by everyone else. Inflicting soul-death is considered by those who know of it as one of the most evil and destructive things that can happen.

Undeath and Other Liminal Conditions

Sometimes, death is not as simple as physical death or even soul-death. Either through the actions of magic (folk magic, divine action, or the spells of a true mage), or because of random, freak occurrence, the separation of the three components of the person does not always happen as expected. In these cases, we find a few types of undeath.

Walking Dead

This happens when the Eidolon and the Pneuma are trapped within the Soma despite it no longer being able to sustain life. One example is the Draugr that sometimes arise on Eyju, but there are many other examples around the Great Ring. It should not be confused with animated bodies, however - those are typically simple corpses who died naturally and whose Pneuma and eidolons passed on, before some magical force reanimated the dead body as a new, typically non-sentient being.

The Walking Dead usually are suffering greatly as a result of their condition, which is corrosive to both the Eidolon and the Pneuma. The individual is likely to suffer dramatic changes in personality if it persists for any length of time, and may even have the resonance of their Pneuma warped from what it was in life. They will find themselves indulging their worst impulses and darkest desires, and usually become monstrous caricatures of their living selves.

Revenants

These are sometimes confused with the Walking Dead, but there is a subtle difference. Revenants are what happens when a Pneuma departs a dead body, but the Eidolon does not. Deprived of the spiritual energies of the Pneuma, revenants must seek out a replacement in order to remain animate. They are predators and parasites who steal the spiritual energy from other creatures. Sometimes this involves a physical transfer of some sort (such as blood drinkers), but other times it can be a purely spiritual transaction. The victim of a revenant is often killed in the process, although it is rarely a requirement for the revenant to feed. Some versions of revenants will transmit the condition to their victims, especially if they completely consume their Pneuma while feeding.

Mind-Death

In one of the saddest of liminal conditions, mind-death happens when something drives the Eidolon from the soma, while the Pneuma is still invested in the body. This results in a living body without any identity or thought remaining. There are many legends of people traveling into the underworld to retrieve the Eidolon of a mind-dead person, although few of these tales end in success.

Ghosts

In other cases, while the Eidolon and the Pneuma are able to leave the soma behind after death, they remain bonded to each other rather than being able to separate and go their own ways. The entity that results from a disembodied Eidolon/Pneuma pairing is called a ghost. These incorporeal beings cannot enter into their underworld or migrate through the spirit realm, and linger on the edges of the physical world. They are typically driven by some overriding purpose that causes the Eidolon to cling to the Pneuma, and often fulfilling that purpose will allow the ghost to move on. However, there are some ghosts who are driven solely by the need to survive, and these usually cannot be released by resolving affairs from their lifetime.

Coming Back

There's never been any shortage of people who want to bring the dead back to life in one way or another. There are a few ways that can happen, and more than a few ways that it can go wrong.

Resurrection

There aren't many beings who are capable of attempting a true resurrection, but it isn't completely unheard of. In successful cases, the soma, Pneuma, and Eidolon are reunited into the original person, and whatever caused them to split apart is resolved - most often requiring that the wounds to the body are healed and normal life is restarted. It doesn't always go smoothly, though - here are a few ways it can break down.

If the body isn't properly healed and revived, the resurrection process will create one of the Walking Dead, rather than the living person desired.

If the Eidolon has already entered into their underworld, it may not be able to return without the consent of some higher power. In this instance, the resurrection will create a mind-dead person. Most eidolons will have entered into the underworld within three days of death, and resurrection is far less likely to succeed after three days.

If the Pneuma has migrated to some inaccessible and incomprehensible location in the spirit realm, the body may be awakened as a revenant. Alternatively, a different Pneuma may be drawn into the body by the resurrection - in this case, while the resurrected person might be alive and have all the memories of the original person, they could have a fundamentally different nature and none of the significant emotional bonds from before death; they remember that they were connected to the people and places of their previous existence, but they no longer feel the power of those connections. Like the Eidolon, Pneuma have typically moved on within three days of death, and resurrections attempted after this period are unlikely to achieve full success.

In general, if a resurrection is to be attempted, it must be done as quickly after death as possible. The longer it takes, the more likely that one or more of the complications listed above will happen. Even then, there are no guarantees when it comes to resurrecting the dead.

Reincarnation

In some cultures, total or partial reincarnation is a possibility. Most often, this is a process that involves the Pneuma, not the Eidolon. The essential nature of the person, and the emotional bonds that helped define them, become part of the newly born individual. It is also likely that one reincarnated Pneuma will pull on these bonds, bringing the pneumas they are connected to back into the world. Group reincarnations like this result in people who feel deep connections to each other even when there is no remembered experiences of creating those connections.

Most often, reincarnated people retain no access to the eidolons of their previous incarnations. However, there is a lingering connection there, and under rare circumstances it may be possible to connect with a previous incarnation's Eidolon, if it has not faded into a shade or passed into oblivion. Any memories gleaned via this connection should be evaluated with care, however. The manner in which the Egregoric Force influences unanchored eidolons means that it will be shaped by common beliefs as much as true history. An ancient Eidolon will remember what is expected of it, not what actually happened. This is especially true for the eidolons of famous people - while they tend to persist much longer without fading into shades, their fame also brings much more pressure from the Egregoric Force.

Apotheosis

In the rarest form of coming back, an Eidolon may ascend into a form of godhood. This happens when the deceased person becomes the focus of legends about their potential return or their ongoing influence in the world. The Eidolon becomes invested with spiritual energy in the same way that belief can create and empower spirits and gods, and the memories and personality of the Eidolon become the core of a new god's identity. Like all Eidolon's, they are subject to being reshaped by the Egregoric Force, but like other gods they will often be attached to a physical anchor that allows them some resistance against it. One famous example of apotheosis is Hundaru of Telmun. After his death, Hundaru's Lighthouse on Menâme was specifically dedicated to the great emperor, and the priests there began to worship Hundaru as a minor god. His Eidolon was empowered by their belief and anchored by the lighthouse itself, and he exists as the god of the lighthouse into the current day.

Apotheosis has attracted attention from many who wish for a form of immortality in the past, but few have achieved it. It requires a dedicated core of worshippers who are willing to persist in their worship for years or even decades before sufficient egregoric pressure builds to empower the new god. It is most likely to succeed with those who already have an enormous presence in the Dream due to being extremely well-known in the world. However, this very fame almost guarantees that the Eidolon will be under enormous pressure to conform to the beliefs of all those who think of them, and may even be divided into multiple individuals by the force of conflicting beliefs. It is a difficult and unreliable path towards immortality.

Type

Metaphysical

A Note on Terms

In this article I am using the terms popularized by Callisthenes of Macris and derived from the Kaphtorikós language. Other languages around the Great Ring use different terms for these concepts.