Nobody knows, the most common views are

1. In the modern civilization, its a Heaven/Hell view

2. In the East its a reincarnation view

3. In the ancient world, they believed all dead went to a dark underworld where spirits were overtaken by ennui but no real torments.

>>51118479
What the fuck kind of a shitty ying-yang bullshit dichotomy is that? Peace opposed to justice? What the actual fuck.

>>51118479
The Afterlife in my setting is essentially just an endless dream. When mortals sleep they temporarily visit this realm, albeit unconsciously and they rarely remember what happened.

The afterlife itself is formless and changes around those inside of it, usually depicting the life and memories of those residing there. Your soul can wander the infinite expanse, changing it as you see fit but over time your soul will weaken until it is no longer conscious, essentially in a vague dream for eternity.

The stronger one's soul, the longer they can remain coherent. Because of this, ancestor worship is the primary religion of the world, and frequent prayers and sacrifices to your ancestors keeps their soul strong. If souls are strong enough, they can even be called upon by worshipers in their hour of need and bestow strength or blessings. The official organized religion canonizes heroes as Saints that are universally worshiped, but people will also pay homage to their own families as well.

>>51120106
Imagine the enfocement and dispensing of Justice.
Is what you imagined particularly Peaceful?
Is Judge Dredd an agent of Peace?

The afterlife is your soul being eaten by the spirits, known as gods and demons, that are staving off the heat death of the universe.

We are naught but food.

>>51118537
Sounds fairly modern irl.
I always dig the "nobody really knows" aspect.

>>51121543
And this sounds close to my admittedly ignorant understanding of Aboriginal Dreamtime.
Neat.

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>>51122187
>We are naught but food
Cue a religious war over the proper methods to flavor your soul for the gods.
The deathtoll from the Mesquite/Teriyaki war of '87 alone sated the Gods for a generation.

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>>51118479
The afterlife has three 'layers'. When you die, the gravity of entropy and oblivion drags your soul to what people just call the Abyss along with a dozen other names. It's nothing but darkness, rain, mountains, and beaches. When you walk into the water, as far as anyone KNOWS, you cease to exist. Most of the dead simply sleep and dream forever if they don't walk in.

Those with greater will and the like can escape up into the Dreamlands from the Abyss when they dream, to exist there as a waking shade among dreams, but a second 'death' will wipe you from existence, and the Dreamlands are insanely hostile.

If you're really fucking insane, you can go past that, and attempt to go Beyond, which is where all the horrible mythos shit squiggles around in the black chaos hell that waits in every metaphysical direction you go too far in.

Some souls can also hop rides to demigod lands, but those are always very very carefully vetted and more visits, since the realm of the demigods is pretty small and has to constantly work to keep the world from blowing apart, and mythos shit out.

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>>51123452
Fuck the gods.

Actually, no fuck that, and fuck them. Better.

EAT THE GODS.

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>>51122045
One can be at peace in his heart and still do whatever it takes to see that justice is served. They are in no way contradictory things.

>>51123539
Indeed.
Justice is a heaven to many.
Viking, Klingon, Javier, Batman...
But it is not Peace.

>>51123538
>EAT THE GODS.
A perfectly viable strategy in my setting.
Sound plan.

Not certain about all-souls-are-food anon's setting.
I doubt there's that much upward mobility.

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>>51123539
>They are in no way contradictory things.
Also, yes they are.
Peace is the act of compromise.
There is no compromise in true Justice.
Ask Rorschach.

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>>51123670
I'm just saying, you could make a rocking BBEG who wants to murder and eat a god. Whether for some esoteric reason, or better, just for the goddamn novelty and lifelong achievement: I turned a deity into a casserole.

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>>51123731
Well, if all gods do to interact with people is to eat their souls, eating them back is a damn PC thing to do.
If they are like other settings' gods, then it is a better BBEG thing to do.

>>51123600
>>51123714
So you're saying that complete absence of justice is the greatest peace imaginable? Detroit must be heaven to you, then.

>>51123917
>So you're saying that complete absence of justice is the greatest peace imaginable?
No, I'm saying that a complete absence of concern for justice might be the greatest peace imaginable.
Let justice go.
Disregard balance.
Disregard your sins.
Disregard the sins of others.
Disregard the horrors of mortal life.
Be at Peace.

>>51123995
that's called 'apathy'

Different cultures have their typical beliefs and gods and such but the reality is, souls fuel magic. Any being with a soul can use magic. Immortals are soulless and magicnumb (they are less affected by direct targetted magic). Dead things can be animated by magic and charged with spell-like abilities but they are unable to direct or control magic themselves.

>>51124007
Peace or Apathy?
Tomayto, tomahto.
Or, did you imagine heaven being frantically worried about every danger and slight ever done to you?

Don't bother answering.
Peace or Justice?
You've clearly already chosen.
Enjoy your eternal struggle to crush wrong doers.
You will fit in well, unless you finally find peace.

>>51124176
>Immortals are soulless and magicnumb (they are less affected by direct targetted magic).
Interesting, I like this.
But is there a canonical explanation for what happens to a soul upon death?
Even if the PCs or NPCs don't know?

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>>51118479
>Actually, I'd like /tg/ to help challenging my setting's afterlife.
>Send me your souls /tg/!
>As the night goes on, I will take examples of souls and determine where they would end up.
Come on /tg/!
Rise to the challenge and give me examples of souls hard to assign!

>>51123995
This is suprisingly evil type of peace

>>51124339
There's a reality that exists overlapped with the world, it can be seen by shamans/blind witches/certain creatures but only powerful magic users or creatures can travel there with their physical bodies, and only for short times, usually this is done to charge magical items with power. Also some plant/alchemical drugs and ceremonial rituals can transport the minds of ordinary people to this 'dimension'. Upon death, the self dies with the body and the spirit enters this 'dimension' blending with it and adding to the magical fire that burns there.

It's appearance varies differently depending on which method one uses to view/travel it. The dead would see it as a brilliant web-like light or fire which they themselves are made of and become a part of. Physical travelers experience it as a wasteland windswept with magical energy that rapidly rains upon them from all directions, like being in a sandstorm made of energy. This will empower specially prepaired items but rip apart living flesh within minutes if precautions are not met. Mental travelers view it as a spiritual realm of vibrant beauty or a void of malevolent wretchedness, depending on the persons soul corruption. Mental travelers hallucinate an augmented world of this spirit/realality around the world they live in, the magic of the soul realm bleeding through the windows to their own souls, their eyes. They see visions of ancestors, spirit animals/creatures and even angellic/demonic beings that deliver messages to them and guide their lives.
The realm itself is a living collective consciousness of raw magical power, completely neutral in morality. There is no good or evil here, the visitor brings that with them from their level of corruption in their own soul as a living being. There are some creatures that live within this realm, they are not of flesh and exist as caretakers because sometimes the living magic users extend their means syphoning power from the realm and cause tears and fissures.

>>51124475
>This is suprisingly evil type of peace
What is evil about letting go of the slights done to you?
Should the good souls of the world forever worry and fret over the evil done to them or the fate of their lineage?
Do not appjy pragmatism of mortal peace to the afterlife.
In mortal life, complacency breeds chaos and disorder.
Forgiveness of all evil in the mortal world is folly.
In the afterlife, you can choose the Peace of forgiveness or the Justice of punishment.

My whole goal was that both "good" and "evil" souls would end up in each afterlife.

>>51124559
The mental travellers see what they want to see and that varies depending on their cultures religion, the caretakers never interfere in these ceremonies except for one region in the world. A fissure is permanently open a mile above the ground at the equator and a culture of magic using lizardmen has built a tower up to it, their city surrounds it stretching out across the land. Here, the caretakers of this magic realm where the living souls go, communicate with the living, although their language is cryptic and confusing to understand. Any person who wishes to learn to tap into the magical realm must travel to this tower and face the caretakers. The ritual is in the journey to the tower and entering the void fissure, where they recieve a message from a caretaker often in the guise of the persons religious messenger/guide and stay within the realm for as long as they dare. The longer they stay inside the fissure, the more powerful the potential they will have as magic users. Greed has claimed the lives of many who remain inside for too long and are torn apart by the raw magic. All magic users are marked by the scars of their time inside the fissure, scars which illuminate with the fire of the magical realm as they become more powerful. Therefore, a magic user is obvious to an observer and its easy to tell which ones you shouldn't mess with.

Not all magic users go on that same pilgrimage though, a few immortal dragons are worshipped as Gods and open fissures of their own to innitiate followers into the arcane arts.

Tales of heroes past tell of mysterious power enveloping the hero from unseemingly beyond and imbueing them with power to overthrow some vile Darklord or Dragon who tries to gain control of the world, blah blah blah. In other words, sometimes a tear will momentarilly open and someone will gain magic ability if they are nearby. These are the void touched, and their magic is often random and unpredictable until they seek out a caretaker/guide.

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>>51124559
>Mental travelers view it as a spiritual realm of vibrant beauty
I see it.

Okay, that is well developed to shore up established worldbuilding but may never see gameplay.
I wholeheartedly approve.

Building my setting from the bottom up. Right now life in this setting is just based on its proximity to magic.

Life grows more entropic and slow the further it is from magic but more evolutionary and active the closer it is to it.


I use 'life' in this terms since the entire world is mostly occupied by a ecosystem comparable to single-celled life - rapidly evolving species appearing, active for a few years before changing and shifting to a better or worse state.

These basic forms of life simply cannot be killed - they are just basic constructs of primordial energy that when struck simply break into their component parts that usually quickly reform again.

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>>51124721
>A fissure is permanently open a mile above the ground at the equator and a culture of magic using lizardmen has built a tower up to it, their city surrounds it stretching out across the land.
Oh shit! There's more!

Okay, your players seem to have a lot work with here.
Kudos.

>>51124754
>entropic & evolutionary opposed
You what?

>>51124754
>These basic forms of life simply cannot be killed - they are just basic constructs of primordial energy that when struck simply break into their component parts that usually quickly reform again.
This seems a bit... OP.

Perhaps it's how it's being framed.

>>51124754
>Building my setting from the bottom up.
Btw, I fully support this. It's what I did.

>>51124774
Hell yeah I got tons more. Currently my players are hunting dragons that went around ripping open fissures with their claws and caused the souls to bleed out and escape and become a multitude of worldly horrors that forced the remaining soul realm to birth the caretakers and repair the cataclysm which almost destroyed magic altogether. They're off to slaughter the dragons responsible while at the same time trying to maintain the lizardmens kingdom from descending into chaos due to the unbalance of the loss of magic in the realm they all tap into.

>>51124808
>You what?

Whats the issue with it? Its change versus timelessness.

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The afterlife is kind of just an annoying detour where you have to listen to your god bitch for a while as your friends are preparing ressurection.

>>51124946
>>entropic & evolutionary opposed
>Whats the issue with it? Its change versus timelessness.
No, it's chaos versus change.
Think hard and find the conflict there.

>>51124979
Sounds as pedantic as intended.

So, im my setting:
>Gods create souls
>~500 years after apoc, many gods died

Death: died/smth, used to be god of harvest, hence the scythe. Now he dont care about worship and just collects souls. No one knows why.

Halflings: Race died out with no god.

Elves have no god anymore and survive as a race by reincarnation, made possible by necromancy: capture soul, then reuse it. 'Half-Elves' are non-elven soul in elf bodies, their soul are less powerful and miss out on some elf racial magic like soulsight, slowed aging etc.

Dwarves are made in the Sunforge, souls smithed at night by Moradin. As they age they turn to stone, before death/unmoving, they settle down in clan-based Hall of Ancestors, or city-based mountain-top monasteries (less honourable). Their souls live here and influence the clan, with traditions, grudges and mood. Dwarves mix ancestor worship and worshipping Moradin. Moradin took over dwarf-making from his dead father

Hobgoblins (might make them orcs instead): god died, a cleric/war general ascended. Cant create soul, shares his own divine spark instead, gotta have it back. As gobbos ages, spark becomes too corrupted, so they gotta die before old age. Ritual suicide by combat is common. Cowards run away, they are the Hunted. Their spark creates a bond, but unexplored/TBD.

Gnomes: made by Moradin (in Sunforge), new to the word, mostly wanderers/nomads. Havent figured an afterlife for them

Humans: God takes objects and makes souls out of them for humans. Nobles have blue blood instead of red. Havent figured an afterlife for them

Gnolls: No god, souls are provided by fiends. Not playable race

Angels: Not tied to any Gods. They uplift worthy souls to join them

Fiends: Tempts with power for soul. example deal: a human noble becoming a vampire.

>>51125212
In Short:
>Elves - Necromancy powered Reincarnation,
>Dwarves - Material Hall of Ancestors,
>Hobgoblin - Soul is fragment of divine, must be returned (rather early),
Other 'contenders' for souls: Death, Angels, Fiends

I still need an afterlife for humans and halflings. Another for lizardfolk would also be nice but Im still debating myself if they should be included.
So there's Heaven and Hell, but I want something more specific for the rest too. Angels are picky about whom they choose. Fiends have no claim unless by deals. The default collector is Death, but I dont just want Death to be default afterlife.

>>51125212
>As they age they turn to stone
This is quite cool, explains the stone statues of them seen in many dwarven depictions. Otherwise pretty cool too, captures the feel of the races with some uniqueness as well.

>>51125268
That is what Im going for, but Im still looking for afterlife for humans and gnomes.
The "turns to stone" was from another anon, bless his creative soul.

I was thinking about drawing the cosmology of my setting and got a random thought: Gnomes and Stars.
>Souls made of stars
What about the afterlife? Removing the stars fits with apoc theme - slowly the world is still dying.
>They become stars
Moradin takes their soul and makes a new star. What about before gnomes, no stars? What are their soul made of (still from the Sunforge)? There were no stars before gnomes?

Have both? Does that make sense? - Explains how stars change/move.
This star idea ties well together with one of their primary defining characteristics: Nomads - plus 'They are new to the world and are searching for their place'.
I also want them to have Shadow Magic, which is not really made yet. They use it to safely travel in the dangerous world (points of light, nature runs amok, magic radiation corrupts nature). The shadom magic idea havent been fluffed or mechanised yet, but I like it. It could be used in creating an afterlife.

Another idea: Elven souls are the fruit from The Tree of Life. After apoc there's no god to make/give them to the elves. What if moradin uses them for gnomes? How does this effect the elves? Particularly the Half Elves (Elf with non-elf soul), elf necromancers favors harvesting gnomes to recreate pure elves?

>>51125391
What if the gnomes have to make their star by experiencing the world as much as possible, the more they explore, the brighter and longer lasting their star, you could even throw in family too by having a family star that is enriched by the travels and experiences of their kinsouls. Craft entire constelations off of family arranged marriages. Maybe each gnome has a life gem granted by Moradin when they are born and it starts completely translucent and slowly fills with light as they experience and age when finally the light becomes so bright it envelops their bodies and rises up into the sky to join their family star. as for shadow magic, you can't have shadow without light, maybe their magic comes from that same gemstone, the more light it has the more powerful their shadow magic. The elders would be revered for their magic and travel experience.

My after life, or the after life that is witnessed is one made for the blashpemers of the setting, so basically most people. They took the original religion from the now weakening natives and mixed it with their own cult like beliefs that disconnected what the original religion was built upon.

The after life itself is simply a reflection of the world where one faces eternal judgement from the embodiment of a force that coerced them to do sin, or any other wrongdoing in their life. The after life has layers, which cannot be seen, of which a colossal hunger grows that resonates with all of what's left of the passed souls as they're continually withered away by their deeds.

>>51125391
>>51125212
Okay.
Sounds halfway done.

>Gnomes: made by Moradin (in Sunforge), new to the word, mostly wanderers/nomads.
Fine, work on them.

>Humans: God takes objects and makes souls out of them for humans.
Cool...
>Nobles have blue blood instead of red.
Seriously? Maybe if it is important thematically...

>Angels: Not tied to any Gods. >They uplift worthy souls to join them
Why?
Where did they come from?

I have heard of exactly one god, why is that?
Are there others?

Your setting has promise, but needs work.

>>51125462
Okay.
Let's set the edge down and back away.

>They took the original religion from the now weakening natives and mixed it with their own cult like beliefs that disconnected what the original religion was built upon.
Fine.
But why does this work?
You can't just declare the primitive religions wrong and take over the afterlife.

Unless you can, if so why?

>>51125656
>The edge
Did it seem edgy? I'm sorry, I made the concept a few years back in high school and got distracted by other things.

The afterlife that's witnessed is merely one for....heretics. They bastardized the original beliefs to fit with theirs and are treated to a life after death that differs from that of the original natives because of this. It's purgatory, essentially.

>>51125469
>>Gnomes: made by Moradin (in Sunforge), new to the word, mostly wanderers/nomads.
>Fine, work on them.
Any feedback on star-relations or some ideas how to incorporate shadow magic. I thinking of using Ethereal plane (plane for souls/spirits) and plane of shadow from DnD, but I have fleshed out anything about it yet. Shadow Plane have potential for afterlife connection.

>>Humans: God takes objects and makes souls out of them for humans.
>Cool...
>>Nobles have blue blood instead of red.
>Seriously? Maybe if it is important thematically...
Just taking some of the old sayings/myths and makes them true. Karma/Luck is a zero sum type of deal so saying 'Good Luck' that gives the person some of your luck. Nobles hold parades expecting the commoners to bless them/their children. Im also thinking this works similarly for the afterlife - Holding a 'Death/Goodbye Parade' can help a person in the afterllfe.
The Blue-blood statement is to create an important/defining divide in humans, and I hope it can be reflected in human afterlife too. I have a vague idea of borrowing some customs from Egypt - IIRC there was a difference depending on your social status, but I gotta watch some documentaries to regain that knowledge.

>>Angels: Not tied to any Gods. >They uplift worthy souls to join them
>Why?
>Where did they come from?
Having multiple Gods I didnt want to tie them to single one, and having multiple orders for each god.. eh, I just didnt want that. Im a little sad to lose the "Messengers of God", but when there's multiple gods - having them as single/own faction is neat. That also opens up Angel-Worship and gives a Good vs Evil type of deal for the setting with the Fiends, without it being "Objective Good vs Objective Evil" - I'll leave enough wiggle room to interpret Angels as prudes, having excluding/elite ideology, a singular vision.

>>51125940 (continued, couldnt see character count, made my reply too long)
>I have heard of exactly one god, why is that?
>Are there others?
Almost each race have have a Patron God, they create the souls for their race.
The elf one is dead. Dwarves and Gnomes share. The hobgoblin god is one that was mortal but ascended - not a full god, lacks soul creation fx. Humans have one, but she not fleshed out. Should Lizardfolk make it in, then they will have their own patron god.

Death used to be a god, but something happened, he sorta died. Now he collects soul. For what purpose? No one really knows (It's a good trope).

Im thinking of having a god that just vanished and keeps hidden, he's The Whispered One, with his own agenda.

I still think this pantheon needs a few more current gods, but part of the setting lore is that there was a lot of god killing in the apoc. Atm Moradin is the most fleshed out as a god of smithing/craftmanship and also the being the sun-god.

>Your setting has promise, but needs work.
Yep, and this helping.
Another point: There's the Divines and the Fates. Supernatural forces beyond man. They are worshipped, have religion around them, established traditions.
>The Gods themselves
>Destiny (a force that shapes stories, you have a feeling you are )
>Karma/Luck (not entirely sure how separate it from Destiny, but I want to)
>Arcanum (magic, is alive/has an agenda/a will of its own)
>Nature (run amok, green apoc, creates a Points of Light setting)
>Death (both the death god and the inevitable fate of dying)
>Angels
>Fiends

>>51125806
>They bastardized the original beliefs to fit with theirs and are treated to a life after death that differs from that of the original natives because of this. It's purgatory, essentially.
What is the metaphysical reality?
They bastardized the religion, so get the purgatory afterlife?
?
What happens to souls when people die?
Why?
No, seriously, what and why?

>>51125940
>having them as single/own faction is neat.
Angels that "serve Gods" yet predate all existing gods adds an element of mystery.
What happened to the old gods?
Telling you is not part of their duty, forget about it.
They are of gods now, so behave.

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>>51126148
>>having them as single/own faction is neat.
>Angels that "serve Gods" yet predate all existing gods adds an element of mystery.
>What happened to the old gods?
One of the discussion I have had with my friend is about origin stories. I havent really made an origin for the world and everything in it. A key element is that there was the Apocalypse. In this a lot of the old gods died, slain by other or by great Mages. Pic related.
Magic and its corruptive nature might have been a catalyst for the apocalypse, or it was the struggle between the gods. The world broke apart even - now there's an edge where you can fall of into hell (at least that's the theory). Bonus contents: floating islands beyond the edge (no in-land floating islands).
This apocalypse is basically my crutch, it affords me to say the origin is lost, Nature have grown volatile for a PoL setting.

Myths that say Angels predated Gods - I like it. I havent fleshed out the angel faction much, only that they have Valkyries, which are the angels that watches (maybe not, some other angel could watch) and brings the mortal to the angel realm. The watchers could be "Guardian Angels" and they tell Valkyries where to pick up. Another function of Valkyries could be transforming souls into angels.
Im liking the idea that an Angel is made up of multiple souls (unlike fiends which is a single tortured soul, corrupted and mutilated), and this fusion are the basis for their nonhuman appearance and the phrace "Be not afraid", think multiple eyes/wings/on fire/etc.

>Telling you is not part of their duty, forget about it.
You are referring to "Messenger of God"?
>They are of gods now, so behave.
They were never (in my mind) messengers so there's no "forget about it".
This could be the original nature of angels, serving the gods. During or right after the apoc, they split off to their own faction. This also supports the divide and the idea that angels are not 'objective good' TM.

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>>51126392
This will be a wild collection of ideas

>Stars
Could be holes from our world into the Divine Realm. They shine because you can see the sun in the Sunforge.
Still liking the idea of a star being a soul of a gnome put up in the sky by Moradin. Gnomes are Moradins own, while dwarves was his fathers' race that he took over.

>Volcanoes
A gateway/rift into hell. Comes with classical "Dug to deep/greedily" trope. Opens up for "The Gatekeeper Clan" among the Dwarves - rampant with both corruption and virtue.

>Placement of Ethereal/Shadow
Works just like transitional planes in DnD

>'Placement' of Heaven and Hell
Im not entirely sure how to do it. Just further up/down or have to travel the planes? Fall over the edge => end in up in Hell

>Heaven <-> Sky
The old idea of a Firmament covering the world, I like this. How is Heaven placed in relation to that?

>Great Idol of Moradin
Holds the Sun-Arch on which the sun moves over the sky on. It stand on its own or on mt olympus (gotta have a mythical mountain) in the Divine Realm. The Idol could stand in the Material Realm instead (with or without olympus).

>Great Library
All knowledge, all prophesies, all oaths. This is where history is written. Some say it only records what happens, others say they also write what will happen.

>The Great Scale
The balance is kept here. Karma/Luck is tracked here and could be included in afterlife determinations/judgement.
Together with the Library, there could be The Divine Bureaucracy.

>Valhalla
I like this idea. Could be organised by the angels, keeping worthy warrior (which didnt become Angels) to battle in the next apocalypse or just against fiends. Where to put it, Heaven or The Divine Realm?

>>51127055
How is the Divine Realm connected to anything else ?

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>>51127367
Found the DnD explanations. Material Plane is Coexistent with the Ethereal Plane and the Shadow Plane.
Using the above idea with volcanoes, then this is where the Material Plane is coterminous with Hell. Falling over the edge, well that means you fall through some coterminous portal/hole into Hell.

Ethereal plane is where souls are when the body dies. If not handled properly this can cause problems, so a priest is necessary to call Death to collect the soul.
Most Elves can see the souls' shadow in the material plane (this have lead to the misunderstanding that they can see in the dark). Skilled elves can see into the Ethereal plane.

Heaven is definitely connected to the Ethereal Plane, maybe just coterminous.

The Divine Realm is separate from the Material plane, at least, it is not a place mortals can go see or visit and come back and tell the world of it. How gods go back and forth, dunno, but they do travel back and forth. I want real entities as gods.
There could be coterminous connections: like Styxx flowing into the material plane.

The realms/planes can be travelled, not easily and Im not sure where to place everything in relation to each other. Astral projection, I want this as an important practice. Where do they actually go? Just the Ethereal Plane?

Sleeping means you go to the Dreamscape. Where is that? There could be a connection between the Nightmare part of the Dreamscape and the Plane of Shadows.

The Great Library and The Great Scale could have been operated by Angels before the apoc. Who operates them now?

Where do Arcanum live/exist?
Where do Death keep all the souls he collects?
Still need an afterlife for gnomes (if they arent made into stars) and humans?

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>>51118479
All of the campaigns I have ever run have been connected by a parallel universes theme. Futuristic campaigns, medieval campaigns, and modern day campaigns. All of them are in a single multiverse, and at the middle is a timeless universe that is inhabited by God and angels.

Its somewhat like a late 1970's setting where everyone is ageless, and its always lovely weather and there is no war.
The whole world is like a nice suburb in America during the Ford years.
Warm, and comfy, and perfect, and just homey.

Ofcourse, nobody is "aware" of this but me. I have hinted at it a little bit for continuity. One of my players is a cleric in the current dark ages campaign, and he met with an angel who gave him a business card with her telephone extension in heaven and it really confused his character, but he seemed to get a kick out of it.

Probably gay, but I am having fun with it as the only consistent thing over the course of several adventures with my players.

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>>51130822
>All of the campaigns I have ever run have been connected by a parallel universes theme.
I've done a similar thing in my scribblings. All my settings are connected in the same universe.

>It's all true: My female incompetence, Zapp's cat-like reflexes, the stuff that made no sense, all of it.

>>51118479
I like the idea of leading on that there is an afterlife and a god and a heaven, and then having it turn out to just be the influence of powerful ethereal beings that have no real interest in the world, and nothing happens when you die. Really fucks with Paladins and Clerics.

>>51123452
Gods and Demons do that well enough on their own?

You think their blessings and gifts are for your benefit?

You fool.

>>51123538
By eating the gods, you become the gods that need to consume to continue existence.

Thus the cycle continues.

The only way to end the cycle is to essentially either kill and consume all of reality, re-birthing the Creator whose death began the doom of existence in the first place. Guess what the BBEG is trying to do?

Better question: where do demons and angels go when they die?

>>51134025
To earth.

>>51122639
The real fun part is that even the gods don't know where people go when they die. My PC, who is both a god and a time-traveler from the ancient world [I promise its less stupid then it sounds, the whole setting is basically Exalted meets Chrono Trigger] basically crushed a more modern PCs views when they were hoping their lost friends would be waiting for him in Heaven, and asked my PC what happened to people when they die and I told them they descend into a dark lightless hopeless realm that never again sees the light of day.

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>>51134135
>My PC, who is both a god and a time-traveler from the ancient world [I promise its less stupid then it sounds,
Doubtful-

>the whole setting is basically Exalted meets Chrono Trigger]
I... stand corrected.

>even the gods don't know where people go when they die.
>I crushed a more modern PCs views, telling them they descend into a dark lightless hopeless realm that never again sees the light of day.
So, you're kind of an evil, lying dick of a God?
Domains include: Time; Deception; Dickery.

>What is the afterlife like in your setting?
There is no afterlife in my current setting.

Some religions claim you reincarnate into a different form (according to your actions) when you die. They are wrong.

The gods and their temples claim that their followers get to spend their afterlife at their side, promising them a blissful eternity related to whatever their aspect or domain is. They are lying.

Necromancers claim to be able to bring the dead back to life, or at least let you talk to your loved ones. They are charlatans.

Demons make promises of an afterlife in their realm, starting out as a lowly servant and moving up the hierarchy eventually. They are also lying.

In reality, when you die, as soon as your brain dies completely, you are gone forever together with any knowledge you held.

According to the system of magic I designed, it would technically be possible to copy the brain at the moment of death into something else to continue your life (in order to make liches possible and the like), but that's like uploading your brain, the question remains if that's still you. Also currently nobody knows enough about magic (or brains) to even begin to attempt that.

>Why do you use that form of afterlife?
The main reason is that I wanted entirely permanent death for my players and characters, with no chance at all of resurrection. I don't like resurrection in my fantasy.

>>51134025
They also permanently die.

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>>51118479
Honestly, I haven't forged a real setting with a defined cosmology yet.

If I had to say I know any of how it'd work now, there's this - there'd be multiple paths you could take after dying, depending on both A) what you did and B) what it caught the attention of.

Becoming a ghost would, for instance, require you to both have unfinished business in the world and have been so unnotable that no significant supernatural entity took any notice of you - which is why there's more animal ghosts than human ghosts.

Every ghost would have a specific ability related to how they died - usually a weak means of inflicting that death on others.

The kind of people most likely to become ghosts are the kind that are emotionally stunted in some way.

>>51118479 (OP)

In my homebrew setting, the afterlife doesn't exist. All the creator Gods and all but three of the demigods are dead, so the heavens and hells were shut down in favor of the mortal world, since the surviving demigods have to sink their remaining power into the weather machines that keep the world habitable.

There used to be fourteen heavens, fourteen hells, a single-room holding cell purgatory, and the mortal realm. Now, all that's left is the Steel Cage and the mortal world. However, that's been the status quo for so long that the mortal world is now much nicer than it was during the Collapse that fucked everything.

>>51134025

In this realm, there were never angels. Demons existed, thousands of them eventually. However, they are complete and total bros who give out good advice and want you to be content with life. They have limited pseudo-omniscience, they can use the power of True Creation to manifest physical objects with no use of energy or magic of any kind, and they can both read minds and answer prayers. When they die, they leave behind intangible ghosts that serve as reservoirs of power that the demigods can harvest, but the power dissipates in SECONDS, so if there isn't a demigod present, you're shit out of luck. There's only one left by this point, sadly, since they all died in the psychic backlash of the Collapse.

>>51134025
They can keep respawning in their respective realms as long as they don't lose the urges that drive them.

Those that do? Those become Shades. If a Demon is Lust and an Angel is Chastity, then a Shade is Numbness - incapable of giving into desire for the same reason it can't control desire. It doesn't have any desires.

They're the angelic/demonic equivalent state to being undead.

Oh god the more I think about it the more it's all just metaphors for depression. Where did it all go so wrong?

>>51118537
>In the ancient world, they believed all dead went to a dark underworld where spirits were overtaken by ennui but no real torments.

I never could decide if that sounded worse or better than Hell.

>>51134025
>Where do demons and angels go when they die?
Agents of other planes typically return to their plane of existence when their body is sufficiently damaged.
Once there, they go through whatever process they normally would to regain a body.
In some planes, killing a denizen in their own plane destroys their "soul" and ends them permanently.