Death, Souls and Resurrection

Death, souls and resurrection in Erindal are governed by the Divine Pact of Souls. A dead person does not immediately appear in the realm of whichever god they worshipped. Every soul first passes into the land of Death, where the current God of Death holds it until its identity, divine pledge and final will are known.

The current God of Death is Threnos. He accepts that resurrection is permitted, but he does not treat death as an inconvenience. His duty is to protect the will of the dead, recognise valid claims and prevent gods, mortals and planar beings from taking souls which do not belong to them.

The War of Souls

The first gods did not agree on whether the dead should ever return. Some wanted to give faithful champions a second chance. Others believed death had to remain final and warned that tampering with it could unravel the balance of the world.

The disagreement became a divine war. Gods took the souls of their followers, stole the followers of rivals and returned chosen servants even when those servants had not agreed to return. A champion killed in one battle could be brought back for the next, while competing deities sometimes attempted to claim the same soul. The damage was not limited to the gods. Mortal lands became haunted, dead people failed to pass on and some souls were damaged or destroyed between rival claims.

The gods eventually accepted that none of them could be allowed to decide the matter alone. Their compromise became the Divine Pact of Souls.

The Divine Pact of Souls

The Pact permits resurrection only when all of the following conditions are met:

1. The dead person made a genuine pledge to a deity before death.
2. The deity still possesses a valid claim to that soul.
3. The soul understands that it is being called back and freely agrees to return.
4. The resurrection does not require the theft, division or forced confinement of another soul.

The Pact is enforced by higher cosmic forces. Most theologians believe it became part of the order first established by Elaria. It therefore survived the fall of Gorgorath and cannot be cancelled by Threnos or by an agreement between younger gods.

Resurrection magic does not overrule the Pact. A spell, ritual or divine act creates a path by which a soul might return. The Pact decides whether the soul may use that path. When the requirements are not met, even perfectly performed magic fails.

The office of Death

The God of Death is the Warden of the Dead, not the owner of all dead people. Death is a cosmic office which carries obligations beyond the personal wishes of its holder.

The Warden must:

• receive souls which have left mortal life;
• protect them while their identity and claims are examined;
• recognise valid pledges between souls and deities;
• allow claimed souls to enter the realm of their deity;
• ask whether a soul freely accepts resurrection;
• prevent false, competing or stolen claims;
• keep dangerous beings from feeding upon souls while they remain under Death's protection;
• enforce the Pact even when doing so opposes another god.

The holder of the office may die, fall or be replaced. The office itself continues because death is part of the ordered world. Gorgorath held it before Threnos. Gorgorath's fall caused a serious disruption, but it did not end death and did not release every soul from the Pact.

The passage of a soul

Death

When a person dies, the soul separates from the body. The speed of this separation varies. Sudden violence, strong magic, unfinished oaths or deliberate soul-binding may delay it, but ordinary grief and regret are not enough to imprison someone indefinitely.

The land of Death

The soul enters the land of Death and comes under the protection of its Warden. Mortal accounts describe gates, black rivers, silent roads, courts and endless halls, but these descriptions may be the mind giving a familiar shape to a place which is not physical in the ordinary sense.

The soul remains itself during this passage. It possesses memory and will, although confusion immediately after death is common. It cannot be lawfully forced to make a new divine pledge after death.

Recognition of a claim

A genuine bond with a deity leaves a mark upon the soul. It is not created by casually speaking a god's name, attending one ceremony or pretending to believe at the moment of death. The devotion must have been real to the person during their life.

A person may worship several gods and possess more than one genuine divine bond. When this happens, the Warden determines which deity held the strongest claim through the person's devotion, worship and genuine allegiance. That deity becomes the soul's patron and normally receives the soul.

A worshipper may doubt, fail or disagree with their church without losing their bond with its deity. Conversion may change which deity holds the strongest claim when the change was sincere. If the strongest claim cannot be fulfilled, the Warden examines whether another valid divine bond remains.

The patron's realm

Once a claim is recognised, the soul may pass into the divine realm of its patron deity. The soul remains itself, retaining its identity and memories while living in that realm among the other dead who belong there.

Different divine realms may provide very different existences, depending on the deity and the nature of their plane. Passing into a patron's realm does not by itself make resurrection more difficult or cause the soul to lose its identity.

Consent to resurrection

Consent must come from the dead person. The desires of family, rulers, churches or adventuring companions cannot replace it. A king cannot order a dead soldier back into service, and a priest cannot decide that grief is proof the dead person would want to return.

The soul receives enough knowledge to recognise who is calling and the life to which it would return. It does not learn every future consequence. It must simply understand the choice and make it without magical compulsion.

A pledge made in life allows resurrection to be considered. It does not serve as permanent consent. The soul is asked again each time.

Threnos is particularly strict about this part of the Pact. His church teaches that refusing resurrection is not betrayal, cowardice or suicide. The dead are allowed to decide that their life is finished.

The faithless and unclaimed

A person who died without a valid divine pledge cannot be released to a patron god and does not qualify for resurrection under the Pact. After their time in Death's custody ends, the unclaimed are cast into the cosmic wastes.

The wastes are beyond the protected roads of the dead. A soul may drift there for an immeasurable period, lose its identity or be consumed by cosmic beings. This is one of the worst fates known to mortal religion and one reason why most cultures encourage people to choose a deity even when they are not otherwise devout.

Religions disagree over the smallest details because no living scholar can safely observe the wastes. Some churches claim that a faithless soul may still be found by an unknown power. Others use the fear of the wastes to force conversion. The basic danger is real, but mortal institutions often claim more certainty than they possess.

Someone rejected by one deity is not automatically faithless. The Warden must examine whether another valid pledge exists. A deity also cannot declare a loyal worshipper faithless simply to avoid responsibility for them.

Fallen and dead gods

When a deity falls, disappears or dies, its claimed souls do not immediately enter the cosmic wastes. They remain in the custody of Death while the claim is resolved.

Several outcomes are possible:

• a successor inherits the deity's domain and accepts its souls;
• another deity accepts the souls through an old alliance or shared faith;
• the fallen deity survives in a weakened form and keeps its claim;
• the souls remain in Death's protection until the dispute ends;
• an individual soul chooses a different valid bond when one genuinely existed during life.

No outside power may simply take the abandoned souls. This rule became especially important after the fall of Gorgorath.

Undeath and necromancy

The Pact distinguishes between moving a corpse and imprisoning a soul.

An empty body may be animated without returning its original soul. This is still necromancy and may be illegal, dangerous or religiously forbidden, but it is not resurrection. The moving corpse is not the person who died.

Intelligent undeath usually requires a soul, a fragment of one or another conscious essence to remain attached to the mortal world. If the soul freely chose this condition and retained a valid divine bond, the case is complicated but not automatically a breach of the Pact. If the soul was trapped, divided, consumed or forced to remain, the act directly violates the order of death.

Vampires, liches, ghosts and other intelligent undead should therefore not all be treated as one identical condition. In some cases the original soul remains attached to the body or mortal world, while in others undeath may involve a fragment of a soul or another conscious essence. Whether the soul remained willingly, was trapped or was prevented from reaching Death affects how the Divine Pact applies.

Destroying an undead body does not always destroy the soul. When the binding is broken, a surviving soul should continue its passage to Death unless another force captures it.

Reincarnation, possession and copies

Reincarnation counts as resurrection when the original soul enters a new mortal body. It requires the same pledge, claim and consent.

Possession is not resurrection because the living or dead soul occupies a body which is not properly its own. It may violate other divine laws and becomes a breach of the Pact if another soul is displaced, trapped or destroyed.

Magic which creates a perfect copy of a dead person's memories does not necessarily return the soul. Unless the original soul crossed from Death, the copy is a new being. Churches and courts often disagree over the legal identity of such a creation.

Planar bargains and stolen souls

Fiends, demons, fey and other planar powers may bargain for service, memory, emotion or a future soul. A freely accepted bargain can create a competing claim, but it does not automatically overrule the Divine Pact.

The Warden examines whether the bargain was informed, whether the being had authority to make it and whether fraud or compulsion was involved. A planar lord cannot lawfully enter the land of Death and seize any soul it desires. This does not prevent such beings from attempting to corrupt, trap or consume a soul before it reaches Death.

Soul prisons are therefore among the most serious forms of forbidden magic. They deny the Warden custody and prevent every valid deity from making a claim.

Limits of resurrection

The Pact permits resurrection, but it does not make it easy.

Question	Rule
Must the person worship a deity?	Yes. A genuine divine bond is required. The faithless cannot use resurrection as a way around their lack of a divine bond.
Must the soul agree?	Yes, on every occasion. Consent given during life is not enough by itself.
Can another god return the soul?	Only if that god possesses a valid claim accepted by Death. Power alone does not create the claim.
Can resurrection be forced?	No. A ritual which appears to force it has either created a copy, bound something other than the intended soul or violated cosmic law.
Is there a fixed time limit?	The Pact sets no single number of days. Time may make return harder as the soul settles into its patron's realm and becomes more attached to its existence there.
Is there a fixed number of returns?	No universal number is known. Each return still requires a valid claim and new consent. Repeated resurrections are possible, but people who return many times are extremely rare.
Does the original body matter?	Not to the Pact itself. It may matter greatly to the magic being used. Reincarnation proves that the same body is not always required.
Can a god ignore the Pact?	Not safely. Ordinary gods are bound by it. Elaria may stand above the Pact, but no accepted account proves that she has ever overruled it.

Threnos

Threnos is not opposed to every resurrection. He is opposed to treating the dead as property. His priests are commonly asked to witness resurrection rituals, identify false claims, investigate soul-binding and determine whether an undead creature still contains the person it once was.

The church teaches three short principles:

• Every soul must reach Death.
• Every rightful claim must be honoured.
• No dead person must be forced to return.

These principles make Threnos respected even by churches which fear him. They also bring his followers into conflict with necromancers, rulers who seek immortal servants, planar soul traders and religious institutions which claim more authority over their dead than the Pact gives them.

Matters still disputed

The following questions are deliberately not resolved:

• The exact appearance and geography of the land of Death.
• Whether a soul in the cosmic wastes can ever be recovered.
• The cause of Gorgorath's fall.
• Whether Gorgorath died, was imprisoned or lost only the office of Death.
• How long a soul can remain distinct inside a divine realm.
• Whether Elaria can override the Pact and whether she has ever done so.
• Whether the cosmic wastes are part of the Celestial Disarray.

See also

• Divine Pact of Souls
• Threnos
• Gorgorath
• Elaria
• Chronology of Erindal
• Undeath
• Cosmic wastes