The Afterlife

Synopsis
Warlike cultures like Picts and Darfari tend to develop the concept of afterlife early, since it greatly helps to suppress the fear of death. The spiritual essence of the dead usually lingers at the place of their death, or near their graves, alternatively leaves to some alternative plane of existence (Valhalla etc).

Variations:
After death, Cimmerians believe their spirits travel to a grey realm, misty and icy, here they forever wander in cheerless gloom. Still, the Cimmerians do not fear death and gladly meet it with steel in hand and a war cry on their lips.

After a person dies, the Darfari believe his soul is free to animate any animal it desires. Alternatively, it can join the spirit world and thereafter be one of the spirits plaguing or helping mankind. A Darfari will often keep the skull of someone he has killed as a fetish. The Darfari will pray to the skull by saying the skull’s name; they believe any request made upon a spirit in his living name will be honored by the spirit.

In Ghulistan, the realm of the dead can be visited by travelling underground; the ways are protected by narrow passages to crush the weak and, of course, demons and monsters. The dead and any shamans travelling there to do battle must fight grim battles against cannibals, wild animals, devils and ordeals beyond the naming. Shamans travelling to the underworld through the narrow passages must battle unspeakable horrors.

The Picts believe in a dark afterlife. After death, their souls will enter the spirit world and haunt the black Mountains of the Dead in the uplands of the Dark Land. The Picts believe that their bodies in the after-life resemble their bodies at death if they are not killed in war, so if a body is left for the vultures or mutilated, the Picts believe the dead will suffer greatly in the afterlife.

Nordheimer believe in an afterlife and the afterlife often mirrors how one lives life and meets one’s doom. For the common folk, the afterlife is dull and dreary, a life spent gathering and serving the warriors. For valiant warriors, however, the afterlife is filled with fighting and feasting in the snowy plains and halls of Valhalla.