The Afterlife

The world has a lot of religions in it, and all of them are wrong. :^)

This page discusses what happens to souls after they die, as well as some stuff about the truth of the divine. It should be noted that the vast majority of characters won't know about what happens to spirits and whatnot after they die, as no religion actually preaches this truth.

To discuss the afterlife, one has to understand spirits. Every organism, from the largest whale to the smallest microbe, has a spirit. A spirit is a separate immaterial consciousness from oneself, which awakens when the physical body fails, inheriting the memories and personality of the dead. A spirit left unattended will just float around and do its own thing forever since it's immortal, until something which interacts with spirits like a Grave controller actually does something with it. The vast majority of spirits are left to this fate, but the spirits of sentient creatures such as humans are of keen interest to numerous different divine beings.

One also has to understand exactly what the divine beings are.

Divinity is defined as having the trait of slowly gaining magical power by having attention paid to you. This most commonly takes the form of worship, which is why every single "god" wants to create religions on Earth that worship them - This increases their power. Prayers work too, which is why sometimes they work. If the divine being answers your prayer, your faith will be strengthened and you'll keep praying, which adds to their power. Some divine creatures will go to different lengths of intervention in peoples' lives for this. Some will totally ignore those who worship them, and not do anything to establish any sort of religion on the world. Others may be heavily active in the beginning, create a holy scripture, etc... But do nothing later. Some will help their followers in very subtle ways, or even go so far as to grant their most devoted followers some magical abilities. If any divine being revealed themself to the whole world in an attempt to gain worshippers, all the other ones would gang up on that one and kill it so it doesn't hoard all the worship.

So, being a divine being, or "god", is actually a trait rather than a race. Their power can vary from just being like a human controller to having power beyond our comprehension. There are lots of them, but basically all of them can be divided into two categories, which will become apparent. These are archangels and devils. The difference between them will become apparent. Archangels and devils are the most powerful entities known, with the only ones who might be able to match them are the most powerful ancient/powerful among the Eldritch.

When an intelligent lifeform such as a human dies, it will almost immediately be seized by a reaper. There is no single reaper as there is in Western mythology, but rather a collective of them which works to bring lost souls to their rightful place, the Ascension Tunnel.

The Ascension Tunnel is an enormous cylinder of spiritual energy. A soul will be seized by a reaper and awaken in the bottom quarter of this tunnel. Near the top is a source of brilliant light, which souls which feel compelled to float up towards. It illuminates the tunnel, though it doesn't reach down entirely. The bottom is a pure darkness, which emanates an intense aura of fear which drives ALL creatures, even the reapers, from ever venturing into it. Similarly, those who go into the light at the top are never seen again, so the true nature of these two places is entirely unknown. Presumably, a place of greatness lies at the top, while a damning void is at the bottom.

Now, not all souls will make it to the top. The Ascension Tunnel has various holes in it, which lead to the realms of divine beings. They're pocket dimensions, not unlike those which the Eldritch have. One of these is for Death, the one divinity who does not fall into the category of an archangel or devil. Specific souls which interest him will be taken by reapers directly to him rather than released in the tunnel. Here, Death will offer them a choice: Either they will work for him, and have their souls be an ingredient in the creation of a new reaper, or they will placed into an infinite abyss in which they will do naught but suffer. Death's primary concern is maintaining the flow of the Ascension Tunnel, so this is a win-win for Death. Either he creates a new worker to bring more souls to the Ascension Tunnel, or a soul is placed into eternal pain. This pain is not thoughtless; while suffering, the soul's only capacity to think will be about this pain and the being causing it. This is attention. This increases Death's power, which makes it more difficult for any other divine being to eventually kill him and thus disrupt the flow of the Ascension Tunnel.

So, unless a soul is specifically chosen by Death to be offered a job, the souls are released in the tunnel. Once in there, they will immediately find adversity. Giant hands, all of which look graceful and benevolent which reach out to try to grab them. These are spells which are cast by the other divine beings of the Ascension Tunnel, the archangels and devils. All of them look benevolent, because archangels are presenting them as they truly are, while devils are presenting a lie about how pleasant they are. Souls don't actually have a way to know which ones are good or bad, and most of them will know nothing about the truth of any of them.

Funny enough, the religion you believe in has no impact on which afterlife you end up in. Just whichever divine being claims you first. You might worship the Christian god (an archangel; all of His archangels and angels would technically be angels and less-powerful angels) and end up being caught by an entity which presents itself as Zeus. Some have raised the concern about people have different contradictory backgrounds involving Lucifer. The response to all of these is that there are multiple different devils calling themselves Lucifer. So, some characters may have backgrounds which are somewhat affected by this information, but from the character's point of view, nothing has to actually change. Your character can believe in a specific religion, even personally serve such a being, without actually knowing this truth. Trust me, Damian wouldn't be happy to learn the truth. Alternatively, they may know that other great powers exist but choose to serve their own over the others.

If a soul is caught by a devil, it may decide to do two different things with them. One is to place the soul into their hell, where the soul perpetually burns and gives the devil power the same way one would if placed in Death's realm. The other is that the soul is transformed into a servant of that devil. Servants of devils are called demons. These demons will rarely ever leave the hell, staying within to maintain the suffering of the souls and act as a reserve defence in case some other divinity decides to invade the hell.

These are artificial demons. Natural demons are created by artificial demons breeding. Natural demons have less innate power, but are also not bound to the will of a devil like artificial ones are. These demons may still visit their hell of origin, but most will spend their time on Earth doing what they feel like.

If a soul is caught by an archangel, it may decide to do two different things with them. One is to place the soul into their heaven, where the soul resides in eternal paradise and bliss, being eternally thankful and attentive to the archangel. This gives the archangel power the same way one would if placed in a devil's realm. The other is that the soul is transformed into a servant of that archangel. Servants of archangels are called angels. These angels will rarely ever leave the heaven, staying within to maintain the happiness of the souls and act as a reserve defence in case some other divinity decides to invade the heaven, wanting to claim the suffering souls and their attention for itself.

These are artificial angels. Natural angels are created by artificial angels breeding. Natural angels have less innate power, but are also not bound to the will of an archangel like artificial ones are. These angels may still visit their heaven of origin, but most will spend their time on Earth doing what they feel like.

Archangels and devils seem pretty similar, and this is true. Their differences generally lie in their motivations. Devils want to grow their power for the sake of power itself. They may even go so far as to invade each other's hells, or the heavens of archangels, to steal the souls and instead direct the attention to themselves. Archangels, on the other hand, want more power to make more of a change. They have more respect for souls and believe that they should be eternally happy, rather than merely exploited. They gain power in hopes of one day forever defeating devils and bringing the suffering souls into their paradises. Archangels may orchestrate invasions of hells for this reason. However, archangels are also as prideful and individual as devils, and archangels may even attack another archangel's heaven if they believe that that archangel's plans are secretly selfish, or that their strategy to defeat the devils is simply foolish.

Most of the time, once inside of a heaven or hell, the soul will not end up going anywhere else. However, Grave controllers may end up making pacts with some of these archangels and devils, arranging for the return of certain souls - At a price.

And so, reapers bring souls to the tunnel, and the souls awaken to find various hands reaching for them. Some may accept being taken by one, others may try to escape but be caught. Some will make it away from all of them and into the light above. None can be certain of what awaits there at the top, but at the very least, it is a place away from the conflict of the divine.

The same could be said for the bottom too, I suppose.