Gemortus

God of Death, Lord of the Afterlife, punisher of villains.

Gemortus watches all the dead spirits and directs them into the realms of the afterlife. In the Valenzi faith, Gemortus sends all souls to three destinations when a mortal dies: the *Shining Towers*, the *Foggy Vales*, and the *Smoldering Abyss*. From his throne Gemortus sits above all three realms in his flying castle, and each soul that enters his domain is brought before his dark chair for judgement, and the judged are then sent to their eternal resting places.

#### *Shining Towers*

The *Shining Towers* are a series of silver and golden spires that stand high above the other realms of the afterlife, above the rise of either sides of the *Foggy Vales*, these spires are reserved for the most virtuous mortals to live in pleasures, peace, and joy. Most of the occupants are heroes, virtuous and good hearted mortals, and those that honored the gods in their lives.

#### *Foggy Vales*

The *Foggy Vales* are a series of valleys, canyons, and cavernous roads forever veiled in a dense green mist. The vales sit below the towers, occasionally opened from the mist to reveal the glory of the tall shining spires above, although none of the roads of the vales lead to the towers, and the tall cliff faces of the hills would require days of climbing to reach even the lowest tower.. Most of the inhabitants of the vales remain dormant, it is a place of neutral peace, and many of the caverns along the veil serve as tombs for those not quite worthy of the towers, but not as wicked to deserve the abyss. These tombs house the dead in eternal rest, but should an intruder enter the tombs the inhabitants awaken and attack until the intrusion is vanquished. Those who die with lives and acts neither good nor evil end up in the vales, and many children and infants are said to be brought to the vales to rest for eternity. The *Vales* happen to be the most populous of the three realms, with many wondering spirits not properly given rest roaming through the mist, searching for lost lovers or family, or for a quiet place to be undisturbed and left forgotten.

#### *Smoldering Abyss*

The mist of the *Foggy Vales* is believed to come from the abyss. All the roads of the vales lead toward the opening of the abyss, a wide pit that opens for twelve leagues across, and chain bridges hang over this monstrous pit for those who wish to cross to the other side. Rising from the uncountable depths of this abyss are billows of heat and black smoke, and many say it mixes with the green myst of the vales to keep the occupants asleep. The pit appears to be endless, though some say if you sit and listen closely on the bridges above the pit you can hear distant wails of the tortured souls below. This pit is the main entrance into the Smoldering Abyss, the destination of the most wicked mortals upon death.

When one of a sinful heart comes to the throne room of Gemortus, the god will judge the wicked for every sin they had committed or caused in their life, and those who stand guilty will be carried from the throne room to the *Bleeding Gate*, where they are to be flogged thrice for every crime on their record. When the gate's rungs are soaked in the wicked of heart's blood, they open and the guilted one falls from the flying castle and plummets past the glory of the *Shining Towers* and the peaceful rest of the *Foggy Vales* and into the billows of smoke that come from the deep endless pit below. At the bottom Gemortus has his eternal torturers punish the villains within, giving them no rest in the afterlife and forever drawing their cries and pleas from their lips, with no mercy being granted.

The abyss is under the command of Ferrovictus, the son of Gemortus, as are all the roads and gates in and out of the underworld. It is in the Abyss that the keep of Ferrovictus, the Chained Bastion lies. Many souls pass through the bastion in their eternal terms of punishment, but the worst, most vile, cunning, and desolate of heart are kept within the bastion forever.