[URBIS] The Road To Nowhere: An afterlife

[Jürgen Hubert]

Yes, you guessed it - it is time for yet another excerpt from Urbis...

This time, I tried to introduce a different type of afterlife. Not heaven, not hell, but... something else.


"The Road to Nowhere: This seems to be the afterlife for all those thinking beings whose souls aren't claimed by one deity or another after their deaths. These souls appear on a long, winding road in a body that looked much like it did during their life at some point, and they still remember everything they learned before their demise. This road winds through canyons, deserts, fertile plains, mountains, forests, and badlands, but it seems to go on and on forever. While it is possible to leave the road, it doesn't really get you anywhere, since this plane seems to loop back to itself - once you have traveled about 10 miles away from it, you will find the road again at pretty much the same place you started.
It is possible for planar travelers to visit the Road to Nowhere with the usual spells, but its inhabitants - the souls of the dead - are trapped there. The only way for them to leave is to be resurrected or - as rumors claim - to travel to the end of the Road, where everyone can allegedly find his heart's desire. The Road seems to go on and on forever, and nobody has ever been found who has claimed to reach its end, but yet the rumors persist.
Caravans and lone travelers constantly move along the endless landscape. It is dotted on both sides by small communities of people who have given up their travels, though most eventually hit the road again. For while countless people must have arrived here, somehow the population doesn't seem to increase - and this, in the minds of many, means that it is possible to reach the end of the Road..."


Your thoughts?

 

[arwink]

It's an interesting idea, particularly useful in the case of a TPK, but I'd start expecting adventurers to start building summer homes there.

"the dead folk remember their lives? Heck, I'm gonna solve me some mysteries this summer" Planar travel solve a variety of ills

On the flip side, perhaps Speak with the Dead will only work on creatures who have made it to the road, while those claimed by deities have their memories wiped clean.

What happens when someone on the road kills another person on the road? Whats the logistics of ressurecting someone while on the road? And, for that matter, why aren't clerics moving into the villages and making a killing converting people before their "second death"

On an endless road, how is anyone doing a headcount to tell whether the population is growing or falling?

 

[Merova]

Excellent Setting Idea!

Your thoughts?

Hi all!

This is a really sweet concept! It's an evocative image, filled with both hope and frustration. The whole sense of futility is emphasized by the inability to travel "off road." Yet, this is an implicit statement of purpose; you can't get anywhere off of the road, because to only way to get somewhere is by travelling to the end of the road.

There's some powerful pilgrimage-style stories that can be developed around this concept. What type of stories to you see here? What type of explorations jump to your mind?

In any case, thanks for writing. Your ideas, as always, are golden.

---Merova

 

[Hand of Evil]

In a way it reminds me of a story (I think) by Robert Zelzany. Mostly those that knew how to get off and on the road would use it to travel and trade between worlds.

 

[Jürgen Hubert]

It's an interesting idea, particularly useful in the case of a TPK, but I'd start expecting adventurers to start building summer homes there.

I'm curious. Why? While the Road isn't all that inhospitable, there are certainly nicer spots out there...

"the dead folk remember their lives? Heck, I'm gonna solve me some mysteries this summer" Planar travel solve a variety of ills

I should probably introduce some limitations on spell use in this plane.

Perhaps any spells that help you to find any person or object simply don't work here - if you are looking for someone, you have to ask around and hope for the best...

And a similar prohibition on movement spells would probably also a good idea. No flight, no teleportation... if you want to travel the Road, you have to do it the hard way...

Apart from that, it shouldn't be all that disruptive. After all, Urbis is a world where the rich expect that someone casts a ressurection on them unless they have died of old age, so being able to visit some spirits of the dead shouldn't be all that dramatic...

On the flip side, perhaps Speak with the Dead will only work on creatures who have made it to the road, while those claimed by deities have their memories wiped clean.

Well, Speak with the Dead seems to assume that all dead remember their lives, and since I try to stick to the D&D rules as much as possible, I'm going to assume that all dead souls remember their lives...

What happens when someone on the road kills another person on the road?

For the dead, I'd say they just reappear again on the Road at the next dawn - while the Road isn't all that bad, they are still trapped there in some curious fashion, and a "second death" shouldn't be an easy release.

As for the living, they immediately go to the afterlife they are destined for - which might be the Road again...

Whats the logistics of ressurecting someone while on the road?

Not any different from the prime material plane, really.

And, for that matter, why aren't clerics moving into the villages and making a killing converting people before their "second death"

Well, there are probably quite a few towns where some religion or other holds sway. But the dead are nevertheless trapped there - whether they convert to a religion or not - unless someone goes to the trouble of ressurrecting them again, so it would be pointless for most. And remember that most of the dead souls on the Road didn't follow a reglion while alive despite overwhelming evidence that there are gods, so why should they change their minds now?

And thus it is possible for clerics to go on the Road and earn money there - but it's probably easier on the prime material plane...

On an endless road, how is anyone doing a headcount to tell whether the population is growing or falling?

They don't. But the population density doesn't seem to go up.

Of course, maybe that just means that the Road gets longer to keep up with the increasing number of souls...


Thanks for the feedback, anyway - I hope to get Urbis published one day, and I appreciate any help in polishing it.

 

[Jürgen Hubert]

Re: Excellent Setting Idea!

There's some powerful pilgrimage-style stories that can be developed around this concept. What type of stories to you see here? What type of explorations jump to your mind?

Road movies.

Seriously, I mostly see the Road as a way to self-discovery. "The journey is the destination" and all that. Those who travel along the road will constantly meet new people and situations, and the way they interact with them helps them to discover something about themselves.

And you can take any plot about myserious strangers appearing in a town and then proceed to save it from some menace - with the PCs as the mysterious strangers, of course. And note that while it is impossible for the souls of the dead to be killed permanently here, violence can still hold terror for them - they can be scarred by violence just like the living, and being thrown out of their familiar surroundings and deposited on a far-away and unfamiliar stretch of the Road is something that those fear who have given up the journey and settled down...

In any case, thanks for writing. Your ideas, as always, are golden.

---Merova

No problem. Posting it here helps me to gather my thoughts and come up with new ideas...

 

[arwink]

The summer home comment is largely based on the usefulness of having a bunch of dead people that are (relatively) easy to access. Players are much bigger Rat Bastards than any DM, and they're likely to twist an idea like this for all its worth (not that the DM doesn't get to twist back). The road would be a resource to be mined.

That, and it's nice to have a place handy when you eventually bite the big one and take up residence

Out of interest, you might want to check out Philip Jose Farmer's "Riverworld" series, which plays around with a similar concept (assuming you haven't already).

 

[Jürgen Hubert]

The summer home comment is largely based on the usefulness of having a bunch of dead people that are (relatively) easy to access. Players are much bigger Rat Bastards than any DM, and they're likely to twist an idea like this for all its worth (not that the DM doesn't get to twist back). The road would be a resource to be mined.

Well, if you come up with good ideas, feel free to share them. After all, the Road has been in existence for a long time, and it is likely that there are some NPCs in the setting who are at least as clever as the PCs...

That, and it's nice to have a place handy when you eventually bite the big one and take up residence

That might be - but you need to guard it in the meantime unless you want some squatters to move in, and you actually have to find it when you arrive on the Road the hard way...

Out of interest, you might want to check out Philip Jose Farmer's "Riverworld" series, which plays around with a similar concept (assuming you haven't already).

Well, I don't own the books, but I do own GURPS Riverworld, which admittedly is one of the inspirations...