Land of the Dead

Land of the Dead
Geographic Information
Alias(es)	Underworld
Capital	Dis
Region(s)	Another realm
Societal Information
Race(s)	Spirits of all races
Demonym(s)	The dead
Political Information
Government	Tyranny
Tyrant	Death
Legislative branch	Nightmare Court

The Land of the Dead is a realm where the spirits of the dead go to from all the other realms. Once a peaceful place, it turned darker and more hostile after Death took over. The dead can talk to the living of other realms through various methods such as contacting the living in Tes Pellaria or through Sinlarine shamans, but usually most spirits stop caring about the Land of the Living once they have died, so communication is sparse.

To people who have seen visions of the realm the very landscape itself seems to be shifting, zooming in and out of select locations at random intervals, and one traversing through it often feels like thousands of miles have been crossed in a mere eyeblink. At the heart of the realm is one known fixed location: Mount Purgatory, or the Pale Mountain, a huge natural monument to decay and to its ruler, Death. Atop the mountain lies the Skull Throne on which Death sits. Dis, the City of Bones, is located at the foot of the mountain and is where the Nightmare Court gathers to carry out Death's orders.

The Dresdens briefly accessed the Land of the Dead with help from necromancers in 1017 AE and found out that it was a desolate place where most of the dead had been enslaved to the will of the Skull Throne. The Dresdens barely escaped from the realm alive but not before they were attacked by various horrible visions sent by the dead which nearly shattered their minds.

Beings from other realms can enter the Land of the Dead even without having died through portals opened by skilled necromancers. However, as a downside exposure to the realm has adverse, mostly unknown effects on people. What has been learned from the experiences of the Dresdens and the few necromancers who have detailed such knowledge down in obscure tomes is that travelling through the Land of the Dead puts both a physical and a mental stress on a living trespasser as the dead seem to flock around those who don't belong to the realm and lash at them with painful visions of their darkest moments, an effect which can drive people insane if they are exposed to it for too long.

History

Origins

Little is known of the origins of the Land of the Dead. Some scholars speculate that it may have come into existence when the first living being died and that it may have been ruled by some entity or entities before falling under Death's power.

Death's Reign

According to The Legend of the Three Brothers, which is an obscure story whose truthfulness and objectivity can't be fully verified due to the subjective lens of its story and those who have narrated it, the gods were aware of the realm's existence at the dawn of time and learned that it and its denizens were being attacked by an Unnamed Evil. The gods Mardük, Paedün and Thoth entered the realm to help it and found an evil beyond imagining in the very heart of the realm. The battle that began on top of the Pale Mountain lasted for an uncounted number of days, ultimately resulting in Thoth being taken over by the Evil and turning into Death. Mardük and Paedün managed to imprison Death atop the very mountain they had fought on but were unable to kill him, so he left him there in his eternal prison.

Despite being tied magically to the mountain, Death's power was still immense enough that he could take over the Land of the Dead and enslave and corrupt its people to do his bidding. He rules from the Skull Throne he had built for himself and set in motion a complex plot that would last for several millennia and which he intended to culminate in him being set free from his prison to continue the work he had begun. He entrusted the Grim Reaper to harvest souls of those who had perished in other realms and bring them to the Land of the Dead to boost the numbers of the dead, thus ensuring a steady stream of worshippers who would sustain him.

It is believed that Death's corruptive influence may have altered the very landscape of the Land of the Dead, turning it into a dark, depressing place with no truly fixed point in its ever-shifting terrain except the Pale Mountain and Dis, the City of Bones, which is located at the foot of the mountain.

Since then, the numbers of the dead have risen rapidly as more and more mortals, whose time on other realms has ended, have been guided to the Land of the Dead. The deceased lose their memories of their past selves over time and stop caring about the life they once had, with very few still clinging on to their individuality in the sea of Chaos. Death's gaze is far-reaching, and the dead instinctively react to any living intruders to their realm as they sense the lifeforce and crave for it to ease their torment.

First Age

Necromancers, people who learned ways to communicate with the dead and even receive visions from the Land of the Dead, first appeared in the Land of the Living sometime around the First Age. Necromancers like Chakal En Ra contributed to the writings on the Totentanz, a tome which contained much arcane knowledge and necromantic rituals such as the Rite of the Revenant through which the dead could be brought back to life. Abusing this power led to a fragile link between the two realms, allowing ghosts to sometimes pass over to attack or counsel people. It also allowed necromancers to raise the dead as undead, such as zombies or skeletons, and use them as their minions.

The necromancers' research culiminated into channeling so much of the power of Death that they could transcend mortality by turning into liches, undead and immortal sorcerers who could command their lesser undead brethren. The liches were corrupted over time by Death who tasked them with breaking the barriers between the Lands of the Living and the Dead, which would eventually lead to the merging of the two realms.

Second Age

Little is known of what transpired in the Land of the Dead during the Second Age except that liches still showed up occasionally, and adventurers fought with ghosts and skeletons while receiving aid from some of the departed souls of their companions as was the case with the Ofuchi Usurpation.

Third Age

Death's influence grew in the Third Age and became much more prominent after the Cataclysm, drawing more and more attention to the existence of the Land of the Dead and the threat it and its master posed. The Dresdens, a group of adventurers, even briefly visited the Land of the Dead with help from the necromancers Deidra Finian, Persephone Barca and Razravkar Dominus and barely escaped with their lives.

The Plague of Undeath was unleashed in Remon, leading to the first known outbreak of undead as those who died of the plague rose anew as bloodthirsty zombies. The barriers between the two realms began weakening as a result and also led to the rise of Deathwatchers who weren't liches or revenants but who managed to retain their sentience after transformation.

Locations

• Mount Purgatory, the Pale Mountain

Settlements

• Dis

Notable people

• Death - Lord of the Realm, Tyrant of Dis
• Gaea - Death's consort, Tyrantess of Dis
• Grim Reaper - Harvester of Souls
• Kivutar - aka Conquest, Nightmare Courtier
• Loviatar - aka Pestilence, Nightmare Courtier
• Surma - monstrous guardian pet of Kalma
• Tuonetar - of whom only one statue has survived in the heart of Dis
• Vammatar - aka Famine, Nightmare Courtier

See also

• Battle of Mount Purgatory
• Death
• Realm
• Rite of the Revenant
• Tes Pellaria
• Undead