Afterlife

== There is an afterlife governed by the interplay of cosmic forces for those born onto the worlds of the Mythos. ==
The first people on the first planet, the Vahlan of Vahlanost, were without concern for their souls after death. There was no death. No one had ever died. When Mage managed to single-handedly invent the greatest source of grief in the cosmos, this changed. Suddenly the Vahlan were concerned with the idea of death and asked what had happened to those who had ceased to move and breathe. The first people to die were cast by Mor-Dun back into the Astral Sea from whence their souls came, and he had no knowledge of nor control over where they went. There was no malice in this. He was not yet the "Great Devourer" he would become, though this act earned him that moniker from the Vahlan who could not comprehend their own ending or that what Mor-Dun had done was natural. All souls from that point forward, until the creation of Paradise and the Abyss, were placed back into the sea. They would float there, some dissolving completely back into energy and others being reborn after most of what they were was stripped away. A few were raised up by the gods to semi-divine status as heralds or different forms of agent. Some washed up on the shores of the strange realms that float in the Astral Sea, and some became part of the great Astral Beasts until the death of such creatures released them. Others simply floated, unchanged, for ages.  
The Way Things Are 
Eventually the Abyss formed and began to draw in all the souls, and indeed everything else in the Astral Sea. However, at that moment, Paradise manifested in its nascent form and became a counterweight against the power of the outer realm. Only the souls of the wicked, heavy with the sin (or negative karma) of their actions are still pulled into the Abyss. The virtuous are drawn to paradise on their own and welcomed by those who came before. Other souls, not quite evil enough for the Abyss or good enough for Paradise, reach Paradise anyway because they serve a god able to send them there and the other inhabitants allow them to remain. The vast majority of the rest still return the Sea in death. The bare remainder either stick to their worlds and become ghosts, or are taken by their gods as personal servants to the various planes and astral realms where they hold power.  
Category:Events
Category:Primal
Category:Fauna
Category:Deity