The aferlife in your world....

[Tinker Gnome]

If you have a homebrew setting. What is the afterlife like in it? Is there even an afterlife? Whiel I have not made a homebrew setting, if there were to be one in mine, everyone would go to one place, I guess you could consider it a heaven of sorts. And everyone goes there, even evil people. The reason being, that when an evil person dies, when they are dieng, they feel a peace, and no longer have a desire to do evil deeds. For those who die very fast, as soon as they arrive, they have this feeling of peace.

So, what is the afterlife like in your hombrew setting?

 

[Aaron L]

I bet the good people will be ticked off when they find out they have lived a virtuous and upstanding life only to find that all those wicked people they avoided got a free ticket to heaven AND got to be greedy pricks while they lived

 

[Trickstergod]

Ineffable. Because Aziriphale is just the best.

Anyway, though not running a homebrew at the moment, the afterlife is essentially an unknowable thing within them for the most part. Religious texts and even gods may say what it's like, but it's nothing that the PC's could ever experience firsthand without dying themselves. Even then, they'd remember nothing if brought back.

Although I will say that this entire "the dead eventually become outsiders" schtick that seems to be the assumed way the afterlife works for D&D just annoys the crap out of me. Same with the concept of petitioners; ones experience through life is the test itself, and death its completion - not just another step along. I'm not so keen on people traipsing through the lands of the dead like it weren't no thang, either. At the very least I figure the goodly planes shouldn't just let folk come plane-shifting on into the deads domains, where those there earned their right to be there (whereas evil-aligned planes are likely a bit more open to all comers to stop in and stay a while...).

In general, though, and even with official campaign settings that I just tweak a bit, I tend to leave the lands of the dead a bit vague and unknown, as they rightly should be.

 

[Agback]

G'day

I have two homebrew fantasy settings.

(i) In Gehennum, the afterlife is part of the World of Dreams, which is the programmable part of the Collective Unconscious. Anything that people believe is there, is there. So if some people believe that Captain Hackum is dead and was a villain, and that villains are punished in Hell, there Captain hackum is in Hell, being punished. But if other people think he was a hero, and that heroes get rewarded, there he is in Heaven, being rewarded. This remains perfectly true even if Captain Haqckum is not, in fact, dead.

(ii) In my D&D setting, Ashphœnices., the afterlife is (as far as anyone has been able to report) a long queue advancing slowly across an infinte featureless plain. As people die, they appear at the back of the queue. As they are Raised, Resurrected, or Reincarnated they disappear from the queue, allowing the people behind to shuffle forward. Druids teach that his queue is advancing toward a Gate Into Rebirth (and that their Reincarnation spell simply allows people to jump the queue: in my campaign Reincarnation blanks the memory, and reincarnates the subject in a new conceptus.) Some clerics maintain that the queue is advancing as God (or his delegates) judge the people at the front (the queue is as long as it is because the world is wickeder than God intended, so people have (since the collapse of the Elvish Empire) been dying faster than they can be judged). According to this lot, the people who have been judged are not available for resurrection, and that is why even True Resurrection has a time limit. Basically, the queue consists of a 200-year backlog in the processing of Judgement. Other clerics teach that the dead must wait in the queue until Judgemment Day, which is coming at the End of the World (sometime Real Soon Now (TM)).

Regards,


Agback

 

[Tinker Gnome]

I bet the good people will be ticked off when they find out they have lived a virtuous and upstanding life only to find that all those wicked people they avoided got a free ticket to heaven AND got to be greedy pricks while they lived

I see the smiley at the end...

Anyways, they would no really be angry, because this heaven of sorts clams the soul. The once evil person will more than likely go up to the good person that they hurt and give them a big hug.

Well, maybe not a hug, but a lot of them would aploigize for all the pain that they caused the good person in life.

 

[spunky_mutters]

My homebrew's afterlife also has a long set of queues, but it happens in a hall.

When someone dies they find themselves in a formless chaos that calls to them and pulls at the edges of their being. They are approached by an old man who offers to take them to the halls of judgement. Those who refuse will either be consumed by the chaos or will manage by force of will to penetrate the chaos and bind themselves to the reality beyond. These people are ghosts. The old man takes them to the great hall with the various queues. Here they will eventually be processed to determine whether anyone has a claim against their soul. Assuming the soul is clean, the person is allowed to choose their destiny. The choices presented are not the reality of the destination, but rather a facade designed to make the location most suiting the personality of the soul seem to be the most palatable. There are exceptions to this. Dwarves must be judged by a committee of their ancestors before being deemed worthy to enter their halls, and elves are currently forbidden from entering the faerie plane because of their falling out with the faerie court.

 

[Aaron L]

I see the smiley at the end...

Dangit, why is there no tongue sticking out smiley.

In my world of Alterra, after a person dies their soul is drawn to one of the 5 Astral Conduits scattered around the world, one at each pole and the rest various magical nexi. From there they are pulled into the Astral plane, where they are either found by agents of whatever god or gods they worshipped, or must fend for themselves. Those without protection are often gathered for larva by wandering demons or nighthags, eaten by Astral Dreadnaughts, torn apart by the Astral wind, or taken as slaves by Githyanki, but some few are rescued by the Astral orders of psions and psychic warriors, who guide them across the Abyss and through the Schism to the planes Ascension to contemplate Truth and rise into the Heavens. (12 distinct Heavens)

Worshippers of demons are typically turned into larva and either eaten or sold to nighthags or liches for food.

Worshippers of devils usually have a contract already drawn up, and often serve as a slave for a set amount of time before they are transformed into a quasit, or higher order devil, with possibility of promotion.

Followers of the Medean Philosphies (which the psychic orders are a part of) also go to the planes of Ascension.

Followers of the angelic religions of the Verandi are taken directly into one of the Heavens by their patron angel, to serve as warriors in battles against the demons, devils, and forces of Abomination.

Followers of the Old Goth gods are taken to serve as warriors in battles against each other, each of the gods seeking to reunite a shatered plane and place themselves as its ruler, and the souls of their worshippers either serve as cannon fodder, or are used as currency to pay yugoloth or other outsider armies, or as fuel to power magical construct warmachines.

And lastly, followers of Abomination or his Outer God masters are devoured and their souls absorbed by their faceless gods, but they are usually already gibberingly insane by that time anyway.

I have things fairly extensively mapped out

 

[Gez]

It depends.

Believers in the Lunar Gods who to the moon, where they join their gods' cities and live a second life until they get killed again and their weakened soul is placed in a crystal.

Fiend cultists are drained into the Netherworld Rip, where they are used as construction material to craft more fiends, or to build evil fortresses, to expand the plane a bit further.

Animists become spirits or are reincarnated. Nonbelievers are reincarnated or become spirits.

 

[The Mirrorball Man]

Well, who knows what really happens? It's the afterworld after all. Gods move in mysterious ways. In the World, all we have are theories, and faith, of course...

Bazzilist Dwarves believe that heaven is a state of mind. If all your life, you've followed the terms of your Divine Contract with the Dwarven God Muo, you'll be rewarded after your death by becoming one with Muo, in what is called the Last Darkness. If you've broken your Divine Contract, you're sent straight to Hell, and you have a possibility of parole every 20 years.

Vivialist Elves believe that their souls have been lent to them by the Elvish God Lanalawalan. The purpose of their lives is to perfect and ameliorate these souls, by attuning themselves to their emotions. When they die, their souls gets reincarnated into new bodies. This cycle of reincarnation will only stop when all Elvish souls will be perfect.

According to the Imperial Church, Humans think that each of their twelve Gods lives in a Heavenly realm called a Holy Lodge. Believers spend their lives petitioning for entry into one of these Lodges. At the end of time, the Holy Lodges will merge, and the twelve Imperial Gods and their followers will live forever in a new Heaven on Earth.

 

[herald]

G'day

I have two homebrew fantasy settings.

(i) In Gehennum, the afterlife is part of the World of Dreams, which is the programmable part of the Collective Unconscious. Anything that people believe is there, is there. So if some people believe that Captain Hackum is dead and was a villain, and that villains are punished in Hell, there Captain hackum is in Hell, being punished. But if other people think he was a hero, and that heroes get rewarded, there he is in Heaven, being rewarded. This remains perfectly true even if Captain Haqckum is not, in fact, dead.

(ii) In my D&D setting, Ashphœnices., the afterlife is (as far as anyone has been able to report) a long queue advancing slowly across an infinte featureless plain. As people die, they appear at the back of the queue. As they are Raised, Resurrected, or Reincarnated they disappear from the queue, allowing the people behind to shuffle forward. Druids teach that his queue is advancing toward a Gate Into Rebirth (and that their Reincarnation spell simply allows people to jump the queue: in my campaign Reincarnation blanks the memory, and reincarnates the subject in a new conceptus.) Some clerics maintain that the queue is advancing as God (or his delegates) judge the people at the front (the queue is as long as it is because the world is wickeder than God intended, so people have (since the collapse of the Elvish Empire) been dying faster than they can be judged). According to this lot, the people who have been judged are not available for resurrection, and that is why even True Resurrection has a time limit. Basically, the queue consists of a 200-year backlog in the processing of Judgement. Other clerics teach that the dead must wait in the queue until Judgemment Day, which is coming at the End of the World (sometime Real Soon Now (TM)).

Regards,


Agback

Great, so basically, the afterlife is like waiting for tech support in voicemail.