Empyschos

The sphere of the dead and home to the Grave Tenders.  The sphere was newly created in the aftermath of the Second Flood to contain the mists of souls that plagued other worlds. The “unclaimed” souls come to this strange world of mist. Many other creatures have come to feast on souls, the Grave Tenders work to bring these souls to rest and hunt the soul eaters. Many children born on this world are tied to strange mists of Empyschos, now called Kalashtar. An elven enclave moved to this sphere to better understand life and death, becoming the Shadar-kai.

## Locations

**The Mistmaw -** The souls of the dead not used by the gods or reprieved are funneled into Empyschos through the Mistmaw where the souls fog is then disturbed across the planet where souls can find peaceful oblivion.

**Fool’s Paradise** - Denial can be a powerful emotion. Many souls who venture to Empyschos refuse to accept this and find their way to the Fool’s Paradise. Their mutual delusion shaping the area around them to mask of utopia. In truth tin is a misty desolate plain. The Living can see the visage if they spend to long engaged with the ghosts. Within this palce the Festival of the Undying is held where people pay the Gravetenders to speak to their dead loved ones.

**Golden City -** Many who enter Empyschos try to pay their way out. The Gravetenders took advantage of this and accepted these contributions for a poultry reward, to be used in soulbinding weapons. It is from these Collectors the Gravetenders fund themselves as they claim the estates of these souls . They now sit in a mighty golden piles surrounded by withered beggars seeking entrance to the Golden City.

**Sea of Tears** - It is said for every tear shed on Creation is added to the grim Sea of Tears. Dominated by turbulent storms great rocks spire out of the briny depths while wreckages of vessels lost at sea break upon these rocks. This dismal place has come to the rest of souls lost at sea and those consumed in their despair.

**Lachrymogenia** - A port city on the Sea of Tears.

**Immolation -** A place of rage, blood, fire and ruin. Those of died feeling nothing but rage on the battlefield come here to fight their wars eternal. The Gravetenders hase began to pit these deceased warriors against one another in trails of combat where the worthy will be given new bodies and raised as a new breed of undead guards.

**Corpsegelid** - A frozen foggy wasteland of corpses and bones. Within this nightmare scape the Gravetnders has made its stronghold. At the center is the Soulspire, the great cathedral of the dead.

**Bleak Realm -** The very core of Empyschos, where those souls who cannot peacefully join the Soulfog are chained. Within this place the so called Throne of the Dead stands. Here Lel-Wani retreats when he tires where the most defiant mortals berate him so he never flees sympathy for the mortals whose ends he shepherds.

**Valourfall -** The ruins of the Halls of Valour. The titanic structure lies broken and shattered upon the rocks of the Sea of Tears. A paladin order brought their fortress here to prove themselves greater prisoners of the dead then the Gravetenders. A grand battle between the paladins and the souls of the dead took place here but the victor is clear enough. The souls have all but abandoned the ruins leaving the abominations created and survivors to their grim fates.