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The Land of the Dead

The Land of the Dead is universally acknowledged, by diverse religious and metaphysical traditions across Taelgar, as the vast, mysterious gathering place for the souls of the dead. When an ensouled creature dies, its consciousness fades quickly from the Plane of Souls, but does not immediately disappear into nothingness. Instead, the souls of the dead drift across the Land of the Dead, a place with many names and many descriptions across human and non-human cultures alike, waiting. Most souls, theologians believe, are taken up by their chosen deity and swept out of the Land of the Dead, to dwell in the Divine Realm of their deity. However, some, who have made dark deals with evil powers, may be claimed by more nefarious powers, and others, perhaps, simply fade away into nothingness after a time.

Descriptions of the Land of the Dead

The journey of the soul is a common motif in art and literature, often based upon the experiences of those who have returned from the dead, although these people usually struggle to articulate exactly what they saw there.

The most famous depiction comes from the epic poem The Song of the Shattered, Reborn, which describes the Land of the Dead as a vast gray expanse, empty except for the occasional distant clump of humanoid figures, the ground a uniform fine gray silt, the sky quiet and unchanging, a gray, monochrome sun hanging in the sky. Vividly, this epic describes the pull of the far shore, the ground itself as flowing like an outgoing tide, gently and inexorably drawing one forward.

In Mos Numena theology, the Land of the Dead is often described as (and sometimes referred to) as a River of Souls, souls flowing from their source on the Material Plane back to the ocean of the Divine Realms. Indeed, the metaphor is often extended to describe the miracle of the Gifting of the Soul as Divine rain that falls on the world. It is from Mos Numenan poets and writers that we get the vivid descriptions of the Land of the Dead as vast warm twilight sea in which the souls of the dead gently float together. In the words of the priest Emmeline of Fellburn, who wrote of her experience returning from the dead, “The first moment I remember is walking, across a sandy shore, the ground cool beneath my feet, the sky dark, the land lit by a twilight glow from beneath my feet. As I walked - I do not know how long - I began to sink, and as I did the sand grew finer, and finer, until I was swallowed up, and found myself being pulled along in a twilight land, no horizon that one could see. Others gathered to me, drifting nearby, but never close enough to reach. The light grew brighter and brighter ahead and the current pulling me grew stronger and stronger. Then I was pulled back, as if by a rope.”

From the Elven songs of twinkling stars growing brighter and brighter; to the Skaer tales of a vast ocean upon which the dead sail drawn by the breath of Kaikkea; to the halfling visions of a song that grows louder and louder as the souls of the dead pick up the dance of the ancestral soul, eager to join; there are nearly as many depictions of the Land of the Dead as there are people who have described it.

The Journey of Souls

See more: Traditions around Death

In most religious traditions around Taelgar, the Land of the Dead is of key theological importance as the locus of the transition between the Plane of Souls and the Divine Realms, and the setting of the journey of the soul back to its creator in the Divine Realms. A number of religious traditions exist to ensure that the souls of the dead reach the Land of the Dead safely, and are protected on their journey through the Land of the Dead to the Divine Realms.

The Divine Veil

Famously, Yendalo the Stoneborn forcibly argued in his treatise On the Power of Creation that the Land of the Dead is, from a cosmological point of view, best understood of as a veil that shields the Inner Realms from the full onslaught of the divine power of Creation. Indeed, its appearance and role as a gathering place of the dead is purely coincidental: as souls are, naturally, made of Soulstuff, it simply takes time for souls to diffuse through the barrier of the Divine Veil. As evidence, Yendalo pointed to the observation that all depictions of the Land of the Dead share some kind of motive force, something that pulls or attracts souls, which he interprets as the longing of Soulstuff to return to the Plane of Creation.

While most theologians reject the idea that the Journey of Souls is simply the mechanical process of Soulstuff diffusing across a cosmological barrier, it is generally accepted that Divine power flows far more easily though the channels provided by souls, and that for deities to manifest the power of creation directly in the Material Plane often carries a great cost. Thus, it only through link through the barrier of the Land of the Dead provided by the connection between the Divine and the Soulstuff of the Plane of Souls that most miracles occur, although there are dramatic exceptions.

Inhabitants of the Land of the Dead

See more: Gidari

The Gidari are strange creatures, rarely encountered by mortals, but frequently described by those who return from death. They are the guardians, protectors, and guides of souls while they traverse the Land of the Dead. They make sure that these souls reach their destination beyond the veil, and they prevent interference with the journey of souls. While Gidari take no sides in the conflicts over mortal souls, they are implacable enemies of those would violate the sanctity of dead souls.