Dying, Death, and Beyond

Dying, Death and Beyond.

"Death is only the beginning." It is a common phrase that describes the power of worlds beyond over the immortal soul, and the new adventure of existence that rests just past the reach of life. As the story of your character grows and becomes more complex, so does the likelihood that they will meet with an untimely demise. Ordinarily, characters in Aelyria are given ample opportunity to escape deadly situations, but if a challenge is too great and your character finds no clear way out, you may find them dying. What next?

Incapacitation
When characters are defeated in combat, and cannot escape, they can become incapacitated, or "knocked out". During this loss of consciousness, it is possible that your opponent, and other creatures that may wander by, may pilfer possessions from your helpless body. However, your character does not die in this scenario; eventually, they will "come to" and regain consciousness. Seeking the aid of a healer or apothecary should be your first concern, for the injuries may be extensive.

Dying
Yet sometimes, wounds sustained in battle - or the impact of another mishap, such as being poisoned or cursed - take their toll upon the body, making it difficult to regain consciousness. Slipping between this reality and the one to come is a common occurrence, and many adventurers claim being able to see "a bright light" at the end of a tunnel during their hallucinations. Dying is extremely unpleasant, and the agents of pain and suffering will prevent your character from regaining consciousness on their own. Only the aid of other characters, such as miracle drugs from a doctor, or powerful magic from a healer, can revive the fallen. With no intercession, the character will eventually perish.

Death
Dead characters leave behind a corpse and all of their worldly belongings. Friends will mourn and foes will rejoice, but the world shall move on. Death, however, is only the beginning. For within each being there is an immortal soul, and when the physical body perishes, the soul leaves the material existence and enters an alternate universe: the Ethereal Plane. Characters that are dead will gain access to a new forum, the Planes Beyond, where their Souls await judgment. The Ethereal Plane is a ghost-world, and it completely overlaps our reality. Characters can still perceive what is happening in the game world; they simply cannot interact with it. Yet this terrible torment does not last long, for frequently, the Ethereal Plane is subjected to powerful winds that sweep away the souls and carry them off to one of two realms: the Excaleris, the Heavenly Stairs leading to the celestial afterlife; or, the Umblat, the Hellish River flowing into the infernal everdeath.

Ghosts
A few souls, perhaps one in a thousand deaths, may escape these winds; these souls have heavy feelings and great willpower. If they succeed, they find that the winds will torment them no more, but their existence will be transformed by continued exposure to the Ethereal Plane. These souls become ghosts, shades of the persons that they once were. Unlike the souls waiting to be taken beyond, Ghosts are spirits locked between realities, forced to wander across the Ethereal Plane. At first, their attempts to interact with the material world that they see around them will produce minor effects -- a sudden chill, a strange noise, or unexplained whispers. Through perseverence and determination, Ghosts can become capable of manifesting in the material world, and this process is called Haunting.

Characters that escape deliverance from the Ethereal Plane will be able to start interacting on the Material Plane forums once more. Bound not by the laws of reality, they can travel instantly to anywhere in Aelyria that their physical beings had visited when alive, but not beyond. Ghosts begin to acquire powers as they continue to interact with the world that they once knew, and if the barrier between the Ethereal Plane and the Material Reality of our world weakens - such as it does during certain times, or as a consequence of specific rituals - then the Ghost may break free, and roam the world as a shade or spectre, a shadow or image. Many ghosts find terrible difficulty in establishing clear communication with the living; they are burdened by their deep feelings, troubled by their past, and in the end, may wander the world seeking the deliverance that they never received. For they are not judged.

Judgment
Souls whisked away are sent to planes beyond, where the gods preside over them. No one knows for certain who is sent where; some believe that souls who lived virtuous lives shall be sent to a fair trial and an honorable opportunity to redeem themselves for their transgressions with a chance at a paradise afterlife, while villainous souls are subjected to a brutally unfair show-trial before the minions of darkness, and then forced through the torments of terrible torture, with the chance of consignment to oblivion. Others suspect that all souls are judged harshly, with only near perfect, stainless ones being allowed to escape darkness. In between this transit, lesser demigods attempt to steal important souls to further their own agenda. But once judgment is issued, the Soul becomes an inhabitant of the new realm designated as home.

Reincarnation
Dwelling in the afterlife, Souls may discover a way - either by earning the favor of a powerful being, or tricking the masters of life and death - to return into existence, by being reborn. Reincarnated characters cheat their fate by returning as a new person, or sometimes even a creature, who at first has no recollection of the past lives he had led. Yet these twisted spiritual memories, locked away in both time and space, can be freed and recalled through powerful meditation and a deep personal enlightenment. It is said that orders of monks exist committed to bringing out recollection of previous lives, for those who have been reincarnated strongly suspect that they were once alive before in another time and another place. If your character succeeds at being reincarnated, you may create a new character with a completely new identity and start the game over, but the possibility of retaining your former character's memories may be an opportunity worth pursuing.

Resurrection
At any time after death, it is possible for a powerful mage to perform a resurrection spell. It requires obtaining the corpse left behind and casting a complicated ritual, often requiring an extremely rare reagent. If successful, the character may return to life, their soul pulled out of the alternate existence in which they were trapped, and resume playing as if they had recovered from an incapacitation. However, the state of a person's body and their quality of life may be impacted. The longer one waits to resurrect a fallen adventurer, the more likely certain defects will afflict them: from the loss of skills and abilities, to the permanent paralysis of certain parts of the body. And there is also the risk of being "risen from the dead", a complicated and ambiguous ritual used by self-serving necromancers seeking to enslave bodies and use them for their own purposes. If your character returns as an Undead, whether through a poorly cast resurrection spell or through an intentionally invoked rising, they will be enslaved to the magic that bore them, subject to manipulation by other spellcasters. It is generally only possible to free them from this horrid fate by slaying them and giving them the final rest that they so deserve.

Rescues
Though extremely rare, there have been mythic tales of powerful wizards leading bands of epic adventurers across the planes into the realms of souls. These planes have their own laws of reality, and adventurers who attempt a transplanar rescue of a fallen comrade may find their skills and abilities unreliable. Often times, they will face the minions of the governing deity who rules over the land they have invaded, but if they confront the master of that world, it may be possible for them to find a way to free and rescue a soul. Rescued souls may be able to return to existence in Aelyria, but how they return often depends upon the powers that bring them back. A benevolent deity may bestow gifts and new abilities, whereas a malevolent demigod may delight in tricking the adventurers into bringing back a badly tortured shadow of a former self. In any case, any attempt to invade another plane is considered extremely difficult, bordering upon the ridiculous. It is believed that most who have tried have never been heard from again, but one cannot discount the tales of the power of love and friendship, comradery and courage that reunites people across reality. Further, it has been known that travel to lesser planes where souls do not exist yield fabulous treasures and amazing artifacts, and so the allure to visit these furthest outer planes where souls reside has always enticed adventurers to dare to dream.