On Hell and the Afterlife

The afterlife in Indratera was known as **Aîat**, a *Zrô ze rêo* (Drowic) word from the Underdark loosely translateable as "permission (for a parted soul) to enter". It was a physical place amongst the stars, with several realms. The afterlife took the form of a solar system of locations around a gargantuan black hole and its starry event horizon. Souls would journey inwards toward the black hole finding the resting place they had been *admitted* to go to. The longer they spent here, the less visible and distinguishing they would appear, eventually becoming grey wisps.

Parts of the afterlife were known to different cultures who shared overlapping traditions, sometimes with their own spin on things. Thus, certain areas were known by different names in different languages. There was little evidence in everyday life that the afterlife was real, but people had superstitions, beliefs and dreams relating to it.

Aîat bordered Idyll, the *Prairie of Dreams.*

## Judgement - Šarcat Mahatž

**Šarcat Mahatž** (Vist for *Star of Judgement*) was a golden constellation of towering stars that formed a great weighing scale. Here was the first place that souls would enter, in order to gain *admittance* to the rest of the afterlife. To enter, they would have their ***heart*** (their soul and their love) weighed against their ***body*** (their actions and their deeds). Hinan-ihaki would affix a coloured feather to the soul, its hue deciding their destination - White for Serenity, Red for Atonement, Green for the Field of Reeds, Blue for Nowhere, or Black for Damnation.

### Hinan-Ihaaki, the Ever-Seeing Judge

Judgement was overseen by the goddess **Hinan-ihaaki** (Yuren for *Death Judger*). She took the form of a colossal woman with a body made of stars and twelve heads that faced outwards, morphing form. She had the heads of a stag, goat, cobra, crocodile, phoenix, shark, bear, dragon, hawk, ibex, owl, and coyote. She had three wings on her back, sprouting in multicoloured feathers. She carried a curved sword in one hand with the blade of a green flickering aurora, and in her other she held a bushel of small feathers wound in fiery rope.

## Serenity - Sokse' Lake:

**Serenity**, also known by the Larawiyaki name *Sokse' Lake:* was the part of the afterlife where benevolent, good, or peaceful souls resided. It was a blue and green planet shrouded in icy blue auroras swirling round the black hole. Effectively a mirror of the Cradle, it was a nice place for good souls to rest forever.

Some accounts by the *VERY few* who had visited and returned (such as the Scaleskull in 1510) said it looked like an endless balmy summer evening, gorgeous crisp blue skies, deep green grassy fields, crystalline water, and beautiful flowers in the foothills of a great snowy mountain.

The main landmark was a huge peak named **Mount Resolute**. Climbing it was almost impossible save for the most determined. The Scaleskull's crew returned from death to the world of the living by climbing the mountain, then taking a leap of faith off the edge into the snowy abyss.

## Nowhere - Urra Nóda

Said to be the part of the Realm of the Dead where sailors and ships went to die, Nowhere/ *Urra Nóda* (Euluska for *Dark Water*) was a sunless, foggy archipelago of freezing cold black water filled with a thousand shipwrecks, black sand, and dying jungle. Ripped canvas and bodies floated in the sea, and gulls cawed overhead.

It was said that those lost at sea specially ended up here. The Agents of Chaos sailed through on their travels in 1552-3 and met only rabid ghoulish spirits and ever-damned sailors' corpses.

### Azimuth the Drowner

The goddess Azimuth was the god of Nowhere, who dragged sailors down to their doom. She was an ethereally pale woman with black hair that floated around her as if underwater. She had arms and legs, but they tended to morph sometimes into stark, pale white tentacles like those of a squid's. She was wrapped in a damp sailcloth and was surrounded by splintered planks and floating ropes, as if she had emerged from a shipwreck herself. She wore a crown of crab's legs, and sometimes had barnacles and starfish attached to her. Azimuth was also able to turn into a foaming current or tidal wave as she wished. She wielded a great jagged trident made of blue, black and silver marbled metal. In addition, she constantly sang a dirge which had the power to soothe or frighten those who could hear her.

## The Field of Reeds - Txegoduat

Txegoduat (Field of Reeds in Euluska) was where neutral souls wandered. It was endless miles of half-sunny tall reeds and rushes, spanning marshlands. A gentle green glow emanated from everywhere, like a cold fog. The sun was a little obscured by the fog. It was endless and full of wandering shades, like the Fields of Asphodel.

### The Keeper of the Rushes

The *Txegoduat* was watched over by a god known only as the Keeper of the Rushes. She was a tall yet hunched old shambling woman with the head of a scaled crocodile atop which sat a crown made of dead branches, and braided reeds. She had a halo of fireflies, and was covered in butterflies, moths, mayflies, and dragonflies. Her cloak was made of moss, damp at the trailing edges, and her body from the neck down looked somewhat like damp, muddy bones. She carried a variety of agricultural tools like sickles, bilhooks, flails and mattocks at her belt, and was covered in many mushrooms.

## Atonement - Asamihea

Asamihea (Old Church Euluska: *Agony*) was a fiery, rocky planet closest to the black hole. Its tail was constantly being pulled in. The planet was the place where evil souls received divine punishments. The landscape incorporated magma rivers, burning desert, and piercingly hot caves, as well as deep watery seas, rocky snowy peaks, and wastes of glass and obsidian hills.

Punishments here were often cruel and fitting to the crimes that an individual carried out in life. The best was, they could not die! Some examples of eternal torment include:

* Ainuk was trapped inside a fur tent inside a heavily forested glade. Every day, a meteor would come down and crush the tent and burn him, but every morning he would rebuild the tent for shelter.
* Aresilia Decimus was trapped in an infinite maze that appeared to look like Halcyon's dingy slums.
* Barney Bombs was strapped to both hands of a giant clock and be stretched apart, then back together, over the course of one day.

Velarin Naysayer was kidnapped and taken down here, and but his rescuers followed him, in 1512. Also, in 1553, the Agents of Chaos were taken here by Jed Wood where they hunted the minor demon Phlacodaemos.

### Sicatrix, Queen of Pain

Atonement was ruled over by a demonesque queen called **Sicatrix.** She was a demonic woman with rocky-textured skin that looked like red-hot coals, burning brightest at her hands. Around her neck was a ring of barbed metal, upon which hung a thousand different keys with the power to free the punished from their punishments. On her head she wore a circlet of thorns which had countless corpses impaled on it. She had four great black ripped wings on her back like those of a ,jagged butterfly, and where her eyes would be, there was just more rocky skin. Her long hair was made of braided black-iron chains that hissed and coiled like snakes, and she had viper's fangs in her mouth. Sprouting from her back, she had the poised tail of a scorpion, and in her hand, she carried a great staff made of black iron adorned with dying people in various forms of pain. Truly horrifying.

## Damnation - Swa Teme

The final point of a truly damned soul's journey was Swa Teme (Euluska: *Void's End*). The black hole at the centre of the system slowly sucked in the most forlorn and lost souls into endless darkness and nothingness, falling into a void forever, alone with their thoughts and going mad for all eternity. Cheerful.

## Mariner's Supernova

A lighthouse rising from nebula clouds and emitting a huge green-red supernova, this beacon served as the way for souls (and others) to find their way to the land of the dead.