Lore24 Jan 11: The Underworld

 The souls of the dead go to the Underworld to forget. Immediately after death the soul still contains all memories from life. However the souls will naturally forget memories from its life, much faster than a living person would. This process is naturally very confusing for the soul, and it usually causes it to act unpredictably. If the soul gets stuck in the lands of the living as, for example a ghost or an improperly made undead, this becomes a huge risk to anyone in the vicinity. The Underworld was created to serve as a safe space to store souls until all their memories fade, and they can safely move on.

As it is a very utilitarian place, the Underworld was never designed to be comfortable. In fact it is mostly a gray, sandy desert with o food or water found anywhere, where the souls of the dead wander ever hungry and thirsty until they forget every moment of their lives and are able to pass on. There is a strange feature, however: anything that was buried with the person ends up mirrored in the Underworld, as well as any structures build specifically to house the body of the deceased. This means people are buried with food, drinks, and other distractions such as favorite books, knitting sets and the like in order to make their stay in the Underworld less miserable.

This also explains why stealing from tombs is harshly punished in most civilized places: you are quite literally stealing items that the deceased might need to avoid spending their afterlife constantly wandering an endless desert. In fact, if one wants to avoid getting cursed (in addition to the other unpleasant things that can happen to someone robbing a tomb), it is best to make sure to have someone summon up the spirit of the owner of the tomb, to make sure that they either passed on, or have no need of the item one wants to bring up from their tombs. Of course summoning a soul from the Underworld isn’t cheap, so there better be some really good loot in there.

When summoning spirits from the Underworld the summoner usually has large quantities of blood ready to give to the spirit summoned. As blood is life, it gives clarity back to the soul, as well as restoring most memories. This is why, unless created very carefully and using the proper rituals, undead tend to be aggressive towards the living. They thirst for life and blood. This also explains why vampires can retain so much higher reasoning and memories of their life, or why ghouls are so sociable after a meal.

While most people end up in the Underworld, the souls of great heroes and divine champions do not. They spend their afterlife in a layer just above the Underworld, eating and drinking while slowly forgetting their mortal lives. But of course there is a catch. A hero or divine champion can only stay up there as long as their deeds are remembered, and if they pass from living memory, their souls are dragged down to the Underworld, to wander and thirst and hunger with the rest.


Image by Prathamesh More

 

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